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“ Why do n't j'^oii put IMrs. Hathaway’s things away, Agnes ? She is 
going to stay with us.” Page ‘iO. 




sr9o,c~ 

AGNES . 

AND HER NEIGHBORS. 


In Three Parts* 


/ 

By Frances Lee Pratt. 






i7 

' '/vU t' 0 


SBoston: 

Published hy 2). Xothrop & Go. 

(Dover, JV. H.: G, T. Day (S' Co. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872^ 

Ei' D. LOTHROP & CO., 

In the Ofl&ce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 


CONTENTS 


« : 

•> 



Chap. 


ni. 

I 

C VII. 

I • VIII. 
I IX. 

X. 

I XI. 
XII. 

xin. 

XIV. 

XV. 


PART I. 

AGNES AVERY — AT GLENCOE. 

Page 

' - - 7 

- 11 

16 

21 

- ■ 26 

34 

- - 43 

- 50 

- 55 

59 

64 

72 

86 

99 

106 < 


PART II. 

AT MRS. WINTHROP’S BOARDING-SCHOOL. 

I. - - - - 113 

II. - - 118 

ITT . 123* 

(3) 


4 


Contents 


Chap. 



m. 


vm. - 

IX. 

X. 

XI. ‘ - 

XII. - 

xni. - 

XIV. - 

XV. - 

XVI. - 

xvn. - 
xvin. 


Page 

135 

143 

153 

160 

169 

175 

.182 

189 

194 

199 

205 

215 

223 

229 

233 


PART III. 

BOTH SIDES OF THE WATER. 


I- - - - 243 

n. 253 

ni. 263 

IV* • " - - 267 

V. 279 

VI. 297 

VH. 309 

VIII. 330 

339 


•Agnes and her J^eighbovs. 


PART I. 


AT GLENCOE, 


“ The social talk, the evening fire, 

The homely household shrine, 
Grow bright with angel visits when 
The Lord pours out the wine. 

For when self seeking turns to love, 
Not knowing mine nor thine, 

The miracle again is wrought, 

And water turned to wine.” 


( 5 ) 











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t 





AGJ^ES AVE^Y. 

CHAPTER I. 

“ How far that little candle throws its beams.” 

N a little brown house, under the drooping 
branches of an elm-tree which over- 
shadowed it like a great umbrella, Agnes 
Avery and her father lived. A lilac-bush 
by the door with a bird’s nest on it, a bed of 
chamomile under the window, and a tangle of 
cinnamon-roses on the bank that sloped away 
from the southern gable of the house, were all 

( 7 ) 



8 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

there was to make Agnes’s home look more 
attractive than any other little, old, brown 
moss-grown cottage, excepting the green grass, 
bright with buttercups and dandelions, in their 
time. 

And yet, although a traveller on the highway 
would not turn his head to look at it, or remem- 
ber it after he had gone a quarter of a mile, there 
were plenty of people who thought it the pleas- 
antest spot in the world. 

It was not beautiful. Nobody said that. And 
Agnes and her father were not rich. Indeed 
they were really poor, and managed to live only 
by making their wants very few and simple. 
Their walls were low and smoky, and their fur- 
niture cheap and scanty. Besides, Agnes’s 
father was fussy and irritable, and Agnes had 
something the matter with her back, so that she 
seldom went out of doors, and often for days and 
days did not sit up at all. 

One would think there could be nothing 
pleasant about such a dull, stinted life as this. 


Agnes Avery, 9 

and yet Agnes Avery knew how to make it 
beautiful. 

You have heard of Alladin’s wonderful lamp 
which would bring just whatever he wished 
when he rubbed it. Well, Agnes had, not 
exactly a lamp^ but a candle ; a little candle. 
And that was what made everything so bright in 
her small, brown house. 

Not a candle of wax, or of spermaceti, or tal- 
low ; not a candle on a golden or even on an 
iron candlestick ; not a candle that one could 
see at all, and yet it made Agnes’s heart cheer- 
ful the whole day long, and gave light unto all 
that came near her. 

Listen while I tell you about her, and then 
let us think if you and I cannot each light our 
own little candle, and so brighten all our lives. 
For 

“Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, 

Like a little candle, burning in the night ; 

In this world is darkness, so we must shine. 

You in your small corner, and I in mine. 


10 


Agnes and Ser Neighbors. 


“ Jesus bids us shine, first of all for Him ; 

Well he sees and knows it, if our light is dim ; 

He looks down from Heaven to see us shine, 

You in your small corner, and I in mine. 

“ Jesus bids us shine then, for all around, 

For many kinds of darkness in this world are found ; 
There’s sin, there’s care and sorrow, so we must shine, 
You in your small corner, and I in mine.” 



■ ';'l 



CHAPTER 11. 

And the good seed thou hast scattered 
Is springing from the heart. 

Whittier. 

day, very early in May, Agnes Avery 
in a low rocking-chair busy over 
ne bit of mending. 

he sticks of birch in the wood-box sent 
out a spicy smell, and through the open window 
come the distant voices of children at play. 
Suddenly the outer door opened softly, and a girl 
with brown eyes and long fair curls came in. 

“ Oh I Alice Irving ! I am so glad to see you. 
I have been sittings here, wishing you would 

( 11 ) 



12 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

come,” exclaimed Agnes, looking up witli such a 
cheerful face and tone that the plain, ding}- room 
somehow brightened up and looked cheerful, too. 

Alice smiled in reply, but it was a faint, sor- 
rowful smile, as she came up to put a buttercup 
she had picked by the roadside among the 
braids of Agnes’s brown hair. 

“Thank you,” said Agnes, when she had 
arranged it and 'stepped back with her head a 
little on one side to see the effect. And Agnes 
looked as grateful and happy as though it had 
been made of topaz with emerald leaves. 

She had for so long made a Christian duty of 
looking for the happiness that is to be found in 
very little things that it was perfectly natural to 
her now. 

“ You don’t know, Alice, how much company 
this handkerchief you gave me is ! ” said she, 
taking up a threepenny cotton one with a border 
of purple pansies. “ I keep it on the stand here 
by me, thinking of you when I look at it, and 
hearing the children, and the birds, and the frogs 


Agnes Avery, 


13 


out of doors, till it seems almost as though some- 
body was sitting by in the room.” 

Alice smiled again ; another little, faint, 
sorrowful smile, and then it faded quite away 
as she said mournfully, — 

“ Oh, Agnes ! Mother is ’ not willing for me 
to go back to the seminary next term, and I 
cannot bear to think of giving it up. She has 
taken a prejudice against the school on account 
of what Miss Winchester said, and, though I 
know she is mistaken in her opinion, all I can 
say only seems to make her more decided. 
What can I do? When my heart is so set 
about keeping on to graduate with my class! 
Do you think, do you think such an unnecessary 
trial will be allowed ? ” 

By this time Alice was crying, and tears stood 
in Agnes’s pitying eyes as she replied, — 

“You will be sure to go, Alice, if it is the 
best thing for you. But we cannot tell that. 
God is not impatient as we are, and sometimes 
He lets us wait a long while before He permits 


14 Agnes arid Her Neighbors, 

us to see tlie reason for the things He does. I 
am always satisfied when I do come to see it, 
and so 1 try to be when I cannot. For it is my 
greatest comfort to believe He overrules in the 
least little thing that happens. I don’t know 
what I should do without such a belief. And 
then if it is impossible for us to have something 
we want very much, we can be sure we are 
serving God by trying to be happy without it.” 

Agnes spoke in this soothing way and with as 
much sympathy as though she herself felt the 
disappointment, till Alice was a little comforted. 
But when she proposed reading their usual 
German lesson together, Alice exclaimed, 
“ There it is again ! Professor Aveneaux thought 
I had got on so well with French that I could 
find some time for German next term, and then 
we could do so much better alone after I had 
been under his tuition awhile. Oh, Agnes ! I 
think it is too bad ! ” 

“ But, my dear, if you cannot help it, you 
must try to bear the disappointment as patiently 


Agnes Avery* 


15 


as you can and not allow your mind to dwell 
upon it. I think, besides, it is not safe to 
insist on having our own way. So many things 
may happen which might make us repent it.’’ 

“ If I could only see any reason for this trial 
it would be easier,” sighed Alice. 

“ There is no use in every trial if we never 
see the reason why it is sent. Our characters 
are always tested by them. We are made better 
or worse by each, according to the effect we allow 
it to produce on us.” 

When Alice went home she was rather less 
miserable, and kept repeating to herself this 
verse of Whittier which her friend had quoted ; 

“ Oh I why and whither ? God knows all 
I only know that He is good; 

And that whatever may befall 

Or here or there, must be the best that could.’’ 



CHAPTER III. 

Where fortune hath deny’d it, 

Contentment gives a crown. 

Ford. 

S Agnes was darning the last stocking in 
the pile, her father came in quite out of 
humor at the result of the town-meeting 
he had just left, and therefore in a 
somewhat unreasonable mood. 

“ You haven’t boiled the teakettle yet, child, 
and I want my supper right off. I don’t see 
what you find to do that you can’t pay a little 
attention to me, and not always be sewing when 
I come home hungry,” said he, fretfully. 

( 16 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


17 


“Why, father!” Agnes answered gently, 
glancing at the tall wooden clock. “ It is not so 
late by an hour as you usually eat.” 

“ I can’t help that ; I want my supper when I 
do want it I And now where are my boots ? I 
left them right here in the middle of the floor 
when I went away, and I wish you wouldn’t 
hide my things so I ” 

He found the boots in their place in his bed- 
room as he spoke, and seeing Agnes preparing to 
fill the teakettle, said, “ You needn’t go about 
supper, I can’t wait for it now. I will eat some 
bread and milk, and a mouthful of pie, and make 
that do.” 

The town-meeting was a special one called to 
consider the subject of a new road. 

“ A foolish plan,” Mr. Avery said, “ to break 
up the farmers at planting-time just about a 
paltry road that wouldn’t accommodate more than 
a dozen families, and half of them could go 
around by the Bend just about as well. All 
nonsense; but that was of a piece with* John 
2 


18 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


Hunter’s notions. Anything to bring a little 
cost upon the town, and fool away the money.” 

Mr. Avery was so heated by his subject that 
he forgot his hurry, and, having finished his 
meal, sat with his hat on, and his hands behind 
his head, looking at the stove and trotting his 
foot while he talked. 

“Well, father,” said Agnes, “Mr. Hunter 
pays the largest tax in town so the expense comes 
heaviest upon him.” 

“ That is nothing,” he answered quickly. “ A 
hundred dollars is not so much to him as one 
dollar is to me, and I tell you I don’t like to see 
new men so forward in a place.” 

“ Why father ! ” remonstrated Agnes again,- 
“he has been in town ever since lean remember, 
twenty years at least ! ” 

Mr. Avery laughed scornfully. “ That doesn’t 
make him one of the old settlers, and, as I said, 
he is a meddlesome maii.” Then, noticing that 
Agnes was putting a patch on the sleeve of his 
blue woollen frock, he said, peevishly, “ I wish. 


Agnes Avery, 


19 


when yon mend my clothes, you would mend 
them so they would stay whole awhile. Now 
here is a button just ready to come off my coat, 
and here is a tear in the lining. Why can’t you 
make as good a mender as your mother, child ? ” 
Agnes knew that when her mother was living, 
before their farm was mortgaged and sold, their 
means were less limited, and her father did not 
wear his clothes out so closely, but she did not 
reply, and he went on, — 

“ While you are about it, I wish, too, you 
would try to get cloth for my shirts that won’t 
shrink so. These you made last fall are getting 
tight already.” 

Agnes said nothing to this either, for she knew 
he could not be made to believe that he was 
growing fleshy as well as old ; and presently, 
after some more fidgeting and fretting, her father 
started with a pail to the neighbor’s for the milk, 
and to talk over the obnoxious road and Mr. 
Hunter. 

Then Agnes took up her scrap-book, made of 


20 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


an old arithmetic, and filled with some of her fa- 
vorite poems, and read until all remembrance of 
ill-humor had passed from her thoughts and the 
cheerful light of the little candle shone once more 
in her eyes. Then she went back to her work 
again with a quiet heart, saying aloud the verse 
she had last read, — 

“He’s faithful that has promised, He’ll surely come 
again : 

He’ll keep his trust wi’ me, at what hour I dinna ken 
But He bids me still to watch an’ ready aye to be, 

To gang at any moment to my ain countree. 

For He gathers in His bosom withers, worthless lambs 
like me 

An ‘ He carries them Himself ’ to His ain countree.” 



CHAPTER IV. 

“ That continuous sweetness, which with ease 
Pleases all ’round it from the wish to please.” 

g%|ll OUR humble servant ! ” said a loud voice. 

Agnes was putting a pie in the oven 
and, startled by the sudden salutation, 
hit her hand against the hot stove. But, 
rising, she returned the greeting pleasantly to a 
large, coarse-looking woman, courtesying stiffly 
in the doorway. 

“ Take father’s chair, Mrs. Wilkinson, you 
must be tired after your walk. How is your 
rheumatism ? 


( 21 ) 


22 


Agnes and Her Neiglibors, 


The woman answered shortly that it was 
“ well enough.” Then her voice softened a tri- 
fle, as she said she expected the wash of alcohol 
and saltpetre that Miss Agnes recommended, did 
her a powerful sight of good. Presently she 
noticed that Agnes held her burnt hand as 
though it were painful. 

“ I declare ! ” said she, coming to look at it, 
“ you have got a pretty bad burn here. If you 
take cold in it, I shouldn’t wonder if you have a 
serious time. But I can tell you what to do to 
cure it right up ; a little lard and soot rubbed on 
will take the fire all out. That’s my remedy, 
but a scraped potato is wonderful good, and 
some say a poultice of saleratus is best of all. 
Anyway you be careful not to take cold in it.” 

“I always use pepperment essence, though 
I’ve no doubt these other things are good,” re- 
plied Agnes. 

“Well, different things suit different people, 
and each to his own way, I say,” returned Mrs. 
Wilkinson. Then after a short pause, while 


23 


Agneh Avery, 

\ 

Agnes brouglit the vial of peppermint and bathed 
her hand, she began again in a hard, gruff tone, — 

“I called up. Miss Agnes, to tell you I can’t 
wash for you any more if your father doesn’t 
bring the clothes round more punctual. It puts 
me back about all my work not to have them 
come when I expect.’^ 

“ It too bad, Mrs. Wilkinson,” said Agnes, 
in a conciliating manner. “ I have felt uneasy 
about that very often. I always have them ready 
in season, but you know father is getting old and 
he has some peculiar ways, as we all have, and 
likes to take his own time. But I will speak to 
him about it, and do the best I can to have them 
sent sooner. I cannot have you give up doing 
the washing, because father is so particular I 
don’t think anybody else could suit him.” 

Mrs. Wilkinson by this time was somewhat 
mollified, and in token thereof laid upon the ta- 
ble a bunch of “ voilets,” as she called them. 
“I don’t care about posies myself, but I let 
these grow because my dead Eliza Ann used to 


24 


Agnes and Her Neighbors. 


set such a store by them. Oh ! it was a great 
stroke when I was called to part with my Eliza 
Ann ! I always thought I should have been a 
different woman if she’d been spared to me.” 

She wiped her eyes on a corner of her calico 
apron, as she spoke with a softened voice. 

Agnes took up her ready scrap-book. “ Let 
me read you something I know you will like, 
Mrs. Wilkinson,” said she. Then she read to 
the attentive listener Longfellow’s “ Eesig- 
nation.” 

“ There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But' one dead lamb is there I 
There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, 

But has one vacant chair I 

No one but Agnes Avery would have thought 
of looking for a chord in Mrs. Wilkinson’s rough 
nature responsive to poetry of any sort, but 
Agnes had touched one. 

“ Won’t you read that over again ? ” said she, 
when it was finished. 

Then after she had heard it once more she 
asked, — 


Agnes Avery, 


25 


“ Won’t you just write it off for me ? ” By this 
time she had almost forgotten she had any 
errand but to bring the flowers. 

“ Well, I must be going,” said the woman, ,at 
last. “ Take care of your hand and tell your 
father to bring along the clothes as soon as 
Monday night if he expects me to do his wash- 
ings for him. I will bring up a root of the 
voilets to plant out under your window, if you 
want.”* 





CHAPTER V. 

Patience and hope, that keep the soul , 
XJnmuffled and serene. 

Caroline May.' 

HERE were three bluish-green eggs in 
the robin’s nest on the lilac, and to-mor- 
row there would be another. Abroad 
were evening voices which came soft- 
ened by the damp night air ; the peeping chorus 
of the frogs, the- sleepy good-night of the birds, 
the lowing of cows and the shouts of the children 
who drove them from the pastures they left so 
reluctantly, stopping now and then to snatch a 
mouthful of the sweet young grass on their 
homeward way. ( 26 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


27 


Agnes listened awhile to these pleasant out- 
door sounds, sitting bj herself, rocking softly 
and knitting on a sock of mixed blue yarn ; then 
she began to sing, and very sweet it was to hear 
her. 

“ Onward, Christian, though the region, 

Where thou art, be drear and lone ; 

God hath set a guardian legion 
Very near thee ; press thou on I 

“ Listen, Christian ! their hosanna 
Rolleth o’er thee, — God is love I 
Write upon the red-cross banner, 

‘ Upward ever ! heaven’s above I ’ 

“ By the thorn-road, and no other, 

Is the mount of vision won ; 

Tread it without shrinking, brother ; 

Jesus trod it ; press thou on. 

“ By thine earnest, calm endeavor, 

. Guiding, cheering like the sun. 

Earth-bound hearts thou shalt deliver, — 

Oh, for their sakes, press thou on. 

“ Be this world the wiser, stronger, 

‘ Eor thy life of pain and peace ; • * 

While it needs thee. Oh, no longer. 

Pray thou for thy quick releasoi 


28 Agnes and Her Heighhors* 

“ Pray, thou, Christian, daily, rather, 

That thou be a faithful son ; 

By the prayer of Jesus, — ‘Father 
FTot my will, but thine be done.’ ” 

After she had finished the hymn, she sat silent, 
thinking of her' dead mother who had been 
called home so many years ago ; and with fresher 
sorrow and longing, of her brother Palmer who 
left life below for the life above not quite five 
years before, just as he had finished his medical 
studies. She and her father were to have lived 
with him as soon as he was established in his 
profession, but he had early finished the work 
God had for him here ; and to Agnes came the 
difficult and bitter lesson of learning to live and 
be happy without this beloved brother. 

Suddenly, her musings were rudely interrupted 
by the appearance of a fat, old woman in a 
scanty dress of faded green Circassian, with a 
monstrous black bonnet on her head, and a 
pillow-case, stuffed out with baggage of some 
sort, in her hand. 


Agnes Avery. 


29 


• “ Here I be ! ” said she, puffing with unwonted 
exertion, and sinking into a chair. Agnes knew 
her to be one of the town paupers, but she was 
too much astonished to speak at first. 

The new comer, however, found herself quite 
at home, and called for a fan and a glass of 
water. 

“ It is too much for me to be junketed round 
the world in this way ! ” she exclaimed^ finding 
breath. “ I ought to have a steady home — 
that’s what I need ; and while poor Hezekiah 
lived I never wanted for one. I am very much 
out of health, — if folks donH believe it — and 
I’m not able to bear this junketing ! ” 

“ Have you walked 'far, Mrs. Hathaway?” 
asked Agnes, more and more surprised. 

“ Not far for a well person,” Mrs. Hathaway 
answered, “only from the Corners. Squire 
Harrington, he is one of the selectmen this year, 
he brought me there, and then he stopped to talk 
with somebody or other, so I got out and came 
along afoot. I had rather walk than wait there, 


30 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

for I knew I should catch my death o’ cold out in 
this night air. I’m not tough, and rugged like 
young folks, and I can’t bear such things as I 
could once.” 

“ So you’ve come have you ? ” said Mr. Avery 
entering that moment with the pail of milk. 
“ Why don’t you put Mrs. Hathaway’s things 
away, Agnes ? She is going to stay with us.” 

Agnes followed her father to the pantry, and, 
shutting the door, inquired about their visitor. 
“I agreed to take her this year,” he replied. 
“ She must have a home somewhere, and we can 
have a dollar a week for boarding her ; beside, 
she will be company for you when I am away.” 

‘‘But her board will cost us more than a 
dollar, father, and it would be so much pleasanter 
without her ! ” 

The dollar coming in looked bigger than the 
dollar going out to Mr. Avery, and Agnes’s ob- 
jections annoyed him. 

“ I wish I could have things to suit myself in 
my own house,” he said. “You are just like 


Agnes Avery* 


31 


J ohn Hunter ; he wants to rule everything and 
everybody in the town, and you would be glad 
to in the house. I suppose you would like his 
scheme of making the town pay out their money 
for a poor-farm and huddle the paupers together 
there like a parcel of dumb creatures.” 

Mr. Avery was raising his voice as he went on, 
growing more and more excited ^at his own 
words, and Agnes thought it was prudent to 
leave him before the object of the conversation 
overheard any more. So she went to her bed- 
room, to put it in order for her room-mate. 

Poor Agnes ! For one moment she bowed her 
face in her lap, while her form shook with sobs. 
How different her life was from what it promised 
five years before ! And now all her quiet hours 
with their comfort, must be given up ; oven her 
own room, which looked dearer than ever, with 
her mother’s bedspread and blankets, and 
Palmer’s book-shelves and little desk, was not 
to be entirely hers now. But the patient heart 
came back directly, and said, 


32 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


“Be comforted, — 

And like a cheerful traveller, take the rood, 

Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread 
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
To meet the flints ? — At least it may be said, 
Because the way is short, I thank thee, God ! ” 

When she had made the necessary preparations 
for Mrs. Hathaway, she took the little Bible 
which had been Palmer’s, and turned to Martin 
Luther’s favorite psalm, the forty-sixth. “ God 
is our refuge and strength, and present help in 
trouble.” She always found Him so, not only in 
the deep waters of affliction, but also in the 
petty annoyances which come every day in the 
way of us all ; and she asked Him to help her 
bear this new trial with patience, and that she 
might be able to preserve for herself a tranquil 
spirit. She did not expect God to work a 
miracle in her behalf, but resolutely and earnest- 
ly endeavored to show the sincerity of her 
prayer by her actions. So she went back to the 
kitchen and entered upon the new chapter of 
her discipline with a face as serene and peaceful 


Aynes Avery. 


33 


as though no cloud had ever passed over it. • 
And for her, the water was made wine, and it 
was poured for her by Christ the Master of the 
feast. 

“ For when self-seeking turns to love, 

" Not knowing mine nor thine, 

The miracle again is wrought 
And water turned to wine.” 


3 




CHAPTER VI. 

“ Had I a glance of Thee, my God, 

Kingdoms and men would banish soon ; 

Vanish as though I saw them not, 

As a dim candle dies at noon. 

Then they might fight, and rage, and rave, 

I should perceive the noise no more 
Than we can hear a shaking leaf ’ 

While rattling thunders round us roar.” 

ONES was lying on her couch one morn- 
' ing, having passed a night of suffering 
which had left her weak, and not yet 
free from pain. Occasionally, yawns 
and long-drawn breaths came from the bedroom, 
where Mrs. Hathaway was “ getting rested up,” 
being from sympathy more out of health than 
usual. 



( 34 ) 


Agnes Avery, 


35 


The monotonous clock ticked heavily, and 
Mr. Irving’s man shouted to the oxen as they 
dragged the creaking cart back and forth, 
drawing dirt for a bank wall. But the birds 
sung on the elm-tree, and Agnes was beguiling 
the weary time, and trying to forget her suffer- 
ing, by learning the twenty-first chapter of 
Revelation. “ And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes ; neither shall there be any 
more pain; for the former things have passed 
away.” 

“Are you sick, Agnes?” said Kate Allen, 
coming in with a basket of lettuce. 

“ Getting better, and very glad to see you,” 
answered Agnes, brightly. “Do sit down and 
stay awhile.” 

Kate put her basket and sun-bonnet on the 
table which was fastened to one arm of Mr. 
Avery ’^s old-fashioned reading-chair, and herself 
dropped into the chair with an air of exhaus- 
tion. 

“ Oh Agnes ! I am having the meanest time I ” 


36 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

she said. “ When David came home from 
college he brought his chum, Orlando Whittelsey, 
to spend part of the vacation with him. Whit- 
telsey is rich, and accustomed to seeing things 
handsome about him, so of course I wanted to 
make it as pleasant as possible at our house. 
But' after I had tired myself out washing 
windows, baking pastry, and so on, what do you 
think should happen ? Why, some evil spirit 
induced David to bring along a little yelping 
black puppy. Now if there is anything I utterly 
detest in the world, and cannot ahide^ it is a dog ; 
and I felt discouraged when I first saw it. I 
believe the animal knows I hate him, and tries to 
plague me ; at any rate, Dave does ; whenever I 
go, and whatever I do, that little nuisance is right 
under my feet. I can’t even enjoy a peaceful 
morning nap, for at daylight he begins a hideous 
barking. I dream all night long of a black dog 
dancing under my feet; and I certainly think it 
will make me sick, I get so nervous.” 

Agnes laughed at first, but Kate was distressed 
and serious. 


Agnes Avery. 


37 


“ You don’t appreciate my feelings, I see, at 
all, and you think I am all in the wrong,” said 
she, looking just ready to cry. “ Why Agnes, I 
have really made it a subject of prayer ; and I 
have no idea I shall go to Heaven, if I die while 
the dog is here.” 

Agnes grew serious, too. “ I think,” said she, 
“ such little continual plagues really require 
more grace, sometimes, than being a martyr ; but, 
after all, perfection is what we must strive for.” 

“ But what can I do ? I have to be around 
in the house, helping mother ; and there is the 
dog, and there are the boys ; I begin to scold, 
Whittelsey looks shocked, and Dave laughs, till 
I feel ready to go distracted.” 

“ I think it possible,” said Agnes, “to have 
our thoughts and temper of mind so far removed 
from what surrounds us, that we really live above 
all these things, as the tops of high mountains 
are above the clouds. Think about the great 
company of prophets, apostles, and saints of all 
ages, who are- gathered in Heaven ; q-nd think 


38 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


about God, who possesses in an infinite degree 
the gravities of mind and thought which are so 
strong in us. 

‘He reigns above, He reigns alone, 

Systems burn out and leave His throne I ’ 

Thinking of Him, so mighty and all-sufficient ; 
with power to bring into existence and regulate 
such a vast creation, soothes me and makes me 
forget myself more than anything else. The 
troubles of one little creature in the universe 
seem so trifiing.” 

Kate looked thoughtful. 

“ I speak out so quickly,” she said, “ and it is 
the first word that does it. After that I can’t 
stop, and I don’t want to. Well, I must go 
home now,” she added after a little silence. 
“Shall I carry this lettuce down cellar for 
you?” 

“ Is that all for us ? How kind you are Kate ! 
Yes, you may if you please,” replied Agnes. 

But the mention of something to eat brought 
out Mrs. Hathaway. 


Agnes Avery. 


39 


“ Who has come ? ” she asked, in a loud 
whisper, stepping just within the bedroom door, 
and shading her eyes with her hand to see the 
better. “ Oh nobody but Allen’s girl ! I 
thought maybe you had some grand company, 
and I had best keep out of sight with my old 
gown. You have got some well-looking lettuce 
there, and I am real fond of lettuce when it’s 
crisp and tender.” 

Kate had stopped in the act of lighting a 
candle, utterly amazed. 

“ So I understand that you live here and sleep 
in Agnes’s bedroom ? ” said she, at last. 

“ I don’ know what you understand, nothing 
about it,” retorted Mrs. Hathaway, “but I live 
here, sure enough.” 

“Oh! Well it is a good thing you are here 
to help Agnes, now her back is so bad, isn’t it ? ” 
replied Kate, hastily, perceiving she had given 
offence. 

But she had made the matter no better. 

“ That is the way,” returned Mrs. Hathaway, 


40 Agnes and Ser Neighbors, 

in an aggrieved tone. “ Everybody must be 
nursed up and waited on but me. But I guess I 
am as bad off as the rest, if the truth was known 
and if it wasn’t for my eating, and my sleeping, 
I reckon whether or no I should stand it long.” 

“ I want to know ! ” said Kate, gravely. 

“ Yes ! ” replied Mrs. Hathaway. And I’m 
not rested up from my side here. It was too 
much for me. I have rode in a wagon twice, and 
I hadn’t ought to done it once. A sleigh 
wouldn’t have tired me so.” 

“I suppose not. But the sleighing doesn’t 
happen to be very good now,” answered Kate. 

Then bending over Agnes, she whispered, 
“ She would be worse than the dog for me to 
liave around.” 

A braided rag mat covered the trap -door lead- 
ing to the cellar and the stairs were old and 
rickety. Not much of a cellar either, for when 
it was dug seventy-five years before, a great rock 
was struck, and to save expense and trouble it 
was left, filling half the space. 


Agnes Avery, 


41 


“ I believe that rock would spoil my temper 
entirely if I lived here. There is no room for 
anything else/’ said Kate, as soon as her head 
appeared through the trap-door. 

“ Bless you ! I cannot afford to lose my peace 
of mind for a roch! Besides I am used to it; we 
don’t need much cellar room and it makes a nice 
place to set butter and meat in warm weather. 
So on the whole, it is rather a convenience, as 
we have no ice-house.” 

“ I don’t reckon that Allen girl understands 
what belongs to good manners very well. She 
is a saucy, impudent piece,” remarked Mrs. 
Hathaway, after Kate had left, regaling herself 
with a drink of cold tea from the spout of the 
teapot before she returned to the .business of 
“ resting up.” 

But Kate was not gone.. She turned back at 
the second maple-tree, and presently stood in the 
doorway again, balancing herself on the threshold. 

I came back to say that you are the best per- 
son in the worlds Agnes, to come to with any hind 


42 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

of unhappiness. You do not snuff out one to 
begin with, by saying it is nothing, and it is fool- 
ish to care for such a little thorn, but you 
sympathize with a body from clear way down to 
the very southwest corner of your heart, and 
that is a great comfort of itself. And then your 
own courage and cheerful way of looking at 
things always brightens up life wonderfully. I 
believe you could live in the midst of nothing so 
disagreeable but you could throw a charm over 
it of some sort.” Then she ran- out, and directly 
disappeared behind the fir-tree once more. 

“ How glad and thankful I am to be a bit of 
comfort to anybody. Although it is not me^ I 
know ; but only as I seem^ seen through her 
loving eyes,” thought Agnes. 

Ah ! Agnes Avery daily showed herself more 
like Jesus than she, in her humility, knew. “ For 
we have not an high priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but 
was in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
without sin.” 


I 



CHAPTER VIL 

There are cooings, and flittings, and carols between, 
For the nest is the fairest that ever was seen, 

And the doves are young, and the leaves are green, 
And now ’tis the merry May weather. 

Una Locke. 

HAVE brought you some morning-glories 
to plant under your window. Some 
seeds I mean.” 

Agnes turned about from her place at the 
tea-table at this sound of a child’s voice, and 
there stood Nelly Hunter smiling out from under 
her brown hat with a paper of seeds in one hand 
and a bunch of white shad blossoms in the otlier. 

( 43 ) 



44 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I can come nights after school and help you 
train them, mother says,” Nelly added. 

“ How pleased I am ! ” said Agnes. “ The 
sun comes in so hot here in summer days, and the 
vines will be prettier than any kind of window- 
blinds.” 

Nelly sparkled with delight even down to her 
little dancing feet. 

But then Mr. Avery must needs speak up. 

“ Don’t you go to covering the windows so I 
can’t see out. I won’t have my house made 
dark as a cellar,” said he. 

Nelly’s smiles faded away, at that, but Agnes 
brought them back, saying cheerfully. 

“Never mind. We can train them at the 
sides in a kind of arch. I don’t know but they 
will look better there than they would over the 
windows.” 

“ Vines draw bugs and flies into a house 
beyond all account,” remarked Mrs. Hathaway, 
looking over her teacup. 

“Yes!” replied Mr. Avery. “And they 


Agnes Avery. 45 

make a house decay, too. I don’t want the 
things around.” 

Agnes made no direct answer, but going to the 
cupboard and emptying some, white sugar from a 
cracked pitcher, without any handle, said to 
Nelly. 

“ If you will get some earth in this, I will 

have my morning-glories in the house where I 

% 

can see them all the time. We can fix a frame 
of sticks and twine for them to run on.” 

Nelly’s face brightened and she ran for the 
earth while Agnes washed the supper-dishes. 

“ Oh ! and my flowers ! ” said Agnes, after the 
seeds were planted, “ they want some water.” . 

But there were not enough to stand alone in a 
tumbler, so she folded a piece of paper over the 
top cutting a hole in the centre for the stems to 
go through, while Nelly looked on in high delight 
that her gifts were so well appreciated ; talldng 
meanwhile as fast as her little tongue could 
move about the baby’s last tooth. 

“ And we think she tried to say ‘ Papa,’ this 
morning,” said Nelly. 


46 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

AgTies listened with real interest to all these 
childish stories, and one would have thought she 
was the girl’s own aunt by the pleasure she 
showed on hearing that Nelly had gone clear to the 
head on the word separate^ going right above 
Amelia Allen and Lucy Serrington, both older 
and bigger than she. 

“ And Miss Agnes, we had a new scholar to-day, 
Susy Bryant, Emily Bryant’s sister, and she didn’t 
keep a bit still. She crawled up on the counter, 
and she put a little bit of a short slate pencil up 
her nose and couldn’t get it out again. The 
teacher was real frightened, but she got it down 
after a while with her penknife. Then when 
Miss Gordon was calling our names for us to re- 
port if we had whispered, the last thing before 
school was done, Susy, spoke right out and said, 
‘ say so to me, say so to me,’ and then spoke up 
loud, ‘ Have not ! ’ and she had whispered more 
than twenty times, and talked out loud, too. Em- 
ily says she never will take her to school again 
in this living world ; and she says — 


Agnes Avery, 


47 


“ Chirp ! chirp ! called the robin outside the 
window. In another week there would be four 
hungry little robins with wide mouths, instead of 
eggs, in the nest on the lilac bush, and the pa- 
tient mother bird had just come off her nest to 
get her supper. 

Agnes threw out some bits of bread and then, 
with Nelly, watched her eat them. Nelly’s little 
tongue meantime was not idle. The robin re- 
minded her of Tim Glover. 

“ Tim Glover is the ugliest boy that goes to 
our school and he breaks up every bird’s nest he 
can find. To-day the girls found a new one in 
the old house where Mr. Caldicott used to live 
and we tried to keep it secret from Tim, 
but Martha Starkweather must go and keep say- 
ing all the way coming home from school, ‘ I 
know something and you don’t I B-i-r-d’s nest 
out in the old house ! ’ wasn’t she mean ? and 
now the girls are afraid Tim will break it up, for 
he wouldn’t promise Amelia Allen not to, and he 
likes her best of anybod}". So they are going to 
watch about there till dark.” 


48 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

Mrs. Robin finished her meal, and hopped back 
to her nest, while Mr. Robin led in the family 
singing, poised on a swaying branch of the elm- 
tree overhead. 

“ I reckon robins make a very greedy sound 
when they sing. I always think what master 
fellows they used to be at gobbling down our 
folkses’ cherries,” remarked Mrs. Hathaway, 
peering from the window at the evening sky just 
lighting up with gold and crimson. “ I shan’t 
wonder a bit if it rains to-morrow,” she continued, 
“ Such pleasant days are apt to be weather-breed- 
ers. I have seen a good many women riding 
to-day, too, and that is a sign of rain. You can 
tell for certain when the stars come out. If 
they are very thick, that is a sure sign.” 

“ Tommy says if a chipping-bird lights on a 
hoe handle it is a sign of rain. He has noticed 
it twice,” said Nelly, laughing. 

“ Tommy ! Who is Tommy ? ” asked Mrs. 
Hathaway, who never lost any opportunity for 
asking a question. 



49 


“ He is our Irish boy. His name is Tommy 
Maloney,” replied Nelly. 

Then she slipped out of her chair. “ I guess,” 
said she, “ I better go and see if t^t hateful boy 
has broken up our bmds’ nest yet.” 

So away she fluttered, with her small heart 
bright and warm from the shining of Agnes’s 
little candle. 


4 




CHAPTER VIII. 

. We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed 
The white of their leaves. Aldrich. 

HE cloudless day, the women, the stars 
and the “ chipping-hird,” were all false 
prophecies. There was no rain on the 
next day, the next nor the next, and 
there had been no rain for three weeks before. 

“ This kind of weather will spoil the grass 
crop if it holds on much longer,’’ said Mr. Avery. 
The young white-oak leaves had just reached 
“ the size of a squirrel’s foot,” and the farmers, 
whether they regarded this old Indian rule or not, 
were planting corn. 

Mr. Avery had hired some land of Mr. Allen, 
and, having been busy working on it all day, 
( 50 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


51 


was enjoying in liis old armchair, the rest he had 
earned. Mrs. Hathaway throwing her apron 
over her head, and tilting her chair against the 
waU, had composed herself for her usual evening 
nap. She did not like to retire too early for fear 
she shouldn’t get a good night’s sleep. Agnes 
knit on the blue sock, with the little table hold- 
ing the candle and snuffers between herself and 
father. 

“ There won’t be half a crop of grass at this 
rate.” 

. Mr. Avery was addressing his remarks to Mr. 
Starkweather, a man who was now an inhabitant 
of Glencoe, but who formerly lived in Portland 
for a few months, and who had ever since con- 
sidered that city to be the only portion of the 
world worth mentioning. 

“ I should think,” he said, “ by what my pa- 
per states, that they are having quite a dry 
time at Portland as well as here.” 

Mr. Avery thought the drought extended some 
way around, but the weather did not affect any 
class of people as much as farmers. 


52 


Agnes and her Neighbors, 


Mr. Starkweather presumed if he had been ac- 
customed to reside at a seaport he would except 
sailors, 

“I meant to refer to landsmen of course,” 
replied Mr. Avery, somewhat contemptuously. 

“ Are the crops seriously injured ? ” interposed 
Agnes. 

“ I do not pretend to say they are injured any 
yet, but I say if the dry weather holds on 
another week, I am afraid the grass will be 
light.” 

“ Oh, you are getting anxious too soon ! Per- 
haps it will rain more than you wish, before the 
week is out. Mrs. Hathaway sees signs of rain 
every day.” 

“ Yes,” chimed in a voice behind the apron, 
“I saw a toad out to-night, and that is a 
wonderful sure sign.” 

Everybody laughed, and, agreeing that the 
matter was settled, dropped the subject for 
awhile. 

“I have been reading an account in my 


Agnes Avery, 


53 


paper,” began Mr. Starkweather, “ respecting 
the recent death of a gentleman who formerly 
resided in Portland. I have met him there 
myself, and found him a pleasant-spoken, 
agreeable man. He has since edited a news- 
paper somewhere at the West, and it seems by 
the account, he became very much excited 
respecting an article in some other paper, which 
he was preparii^g to answer. So much so, that 
fanaticism set in, and carried him off the next 
day.” 

Mr. Avery looked perfectly serious, and 
answered gravely, that it would sometimes have 
that effect. Agnes’s knitting suddenly got out 
of order and she bent her head low to make it 
right. Meanwhile Mr. Starkweather, quite un- 
conscious of any blunder, talked on with his 
accustomed air of self-satisfaction. 

Presently the subject of the weather came up 
again, and the men entertained each other for 
a long time with stories of drought and dearth. 

“ I remember you talked just so last year 


54 


Agnes and her Neighbors, 


for about five weeks,’’ said Agnes, at last, “ and 
you know there never was a more bountiful sea- 
son. The rains came soon enough to save every- 
thing, and I do not see any use in getting 
distressed till vegetation begins to suffer. You 
ought to hear a fable Alice Irving and I came 
across in our German reading, to-day. 

“I should be pleased to have you read it 
to us,” said Mr. Starkweather, graciously. 

So Agnes brought her German book and 
translated it aloud. 




CHAPTER IX. 

nis that never happened have chiefly made thee, 
wretched. Tupper. 

THE DOUBTING CATERPILLAR. 

F what can the apple-tree roots be think- 
ing that they do not begin to send up 
the sap ? ” said a small green caterpillar, 
impatiently. “ I see the leaf-buds have 
started already on that lilac bush yonder. To 
be sure we are not suffering much, at present, 
but there will not be a leaf on the tree if the 
sap does not start soon, and then what are we 
to do ? ’’ 

The small caterpillar waited for an hour 

( 55 ) 



66 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

and began to cliafe and fret again. “No sap 
yet ! what a backward tree ! I wish it would 
begin to show some signs of life.” 

Then it was night, and the caterpillar rolled 
himself in a ball and took a good nap, and so 
pretty soon it was morning ; and then awaking 
and stretching himself, he looked about him, and 
began the grumble again because the season was 
getting on and still there was not sap enough 
coming up through the trunk and branches of 
the old apple-tree to send out life and beauty, 
in the form of leaves and blossoms. 

But the tree that had put forth buds and fruit 
through many generations of green caterpillars, 
and had its own mission to fulfil whether the 
worms were there or not, was meantime carrying 
on its work in the dark laboratory under ground, 
and in due season blossomed into a beautiful and 
fragrant bouquet, till at last, after the hot sun of 
the summer and rains of the autumn, its droop- 
ing branches almost touched the ground under 
the heavy burden of ripe fruit.” 


Agnes Avery, 


5T 


“ Huh ? Did you say it is going to be a good 
fruit-year ? ” queried Mrs. Hathaway, emerging 
from her nap and her apron. “ I hope it will 
be ; I’m a real hand for apples, and I reckon 
they are healthy for me. I always notice if I 
keep along till apple-time, that I am sure to get 
through the rest of the year. Well, I’ll fix off to 
bed, though I’ve no thought I shall get to sleep 
before midnight, I feel so wakeful ; but lying in 
bed will rest me up some, I hope.” 

So she gathered up her blankets, with sundry 
vials of medicine to have on hand in case she 
should be taken sick in the night, and disap- 
peared. 

Mr. Starkweather took his leave soon after, 
saying he left his woman alone telling her he 
should not be absent long. 

For some time the father and daughter sat 
without speaking, on opposite sides of the little 
round table. The clock, the clicking of Agnes’s 
needles, the distant barking of a dog, and the 
peeping of the frogs, filled, without disturbing 
the quiet. 


58 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I do not know of any pleasanter music than 
the frogs make,” said Agnes, at last. “ I be- 
lieve I enjoy them better than I do the birds.” 

“ Your mother used to say so,” replied Mr. 
Avery. 

Then after a little pause, he added, — 

“You are a good dea^l like her, child, and I 
don’t suppose you know what a comfort you are 
to me. I am poor company for you, I know, but 
I am an old man and I have had my troubles.” 

Mr. Avery turned the wooden button on the 
outer door that shut out the world, and saying, — 

“ Try to get a good night’s rest, my daughter,” 
left Agnes alone. 

The softened words of her father, so unusual 
to him, brought happy tears to her eyes, and she 
thanked God for His goodness in giving her so 
many blessings. 

“ The social talk, the evening fire, 

The homely household shrine. 

Grow bright with angel visits, when 
The Lord pours out the wine.” 



CHAPTER X. 

I think of pain and dying 
As that which is but nought, 

When glorious morning, warm and bright. 

With all its voices of delight. 

From the chill darkness of the night 
Like a new life is brought. 

Mary Howitt. 

HEN June came, she brought so many 
roses that Kate often said it seemed to 
her they grew on all kinds of bushes, 
and she expected every day to see rose- 
buds starting out on the pea-brush and bean- 
poles. Everybody’s garden was full and running 
over with them. They were creeping through 
fences and blossoming by the roadside. White 

( 59 ) 



60 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

pink, red and yellow ; hundred-leaved, Michigan, 
Burgundy and cinnamon roses ; every color and 
variety, from the elegant dainty moss-rose to the 
humble wayside eglantine ; and of each was a 
beautiful profusion at the brown house under 
the elm-tree. Because, since Agnes had no gar- 
den, those who had gardens kept her supplied 
with flowers. So nobody’s house had such 
a variety. 

“You look as though you were holding a 
floral festival,” said Alice, coming in with a 
spray of half-opened damask rose. She came to 
Agnes’s couch and put it in her hand. Agnes 
smiled as she looked at the flowers, and at the 
pink and white face of her friend, which was 
lovelier to her than the roses, but there were 
traces of pain on her face which Alice was quick 
to see. 

“ How many sick days you do have, Agnes ! 
I am afraid you are getting worse ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “ I wish you could have skilful medi- 
cal treatment.” 


Agnes Avery, 


61 


“You remember the woman in Scripture,” 
returned Agnes, “ who spent all her living on 
physicians, and was rather the worse. When the 
poor body is quite worn out we must just lay it 
away and do without it, that is all.” 

She spoke cheerfully, but Alice looked sad. 

“ I wish I had as little dread of death as you 
have,” she said, “ I do not allow myself to get 
unhappy about it, for a hundred things may 
happen to make me ready to long for death 
before it comes, but the mention of it gives me 
a sudden shock which is not pleasant, and I 
would like to get over that.” 

“ I remember,” said Agnes, “ when I felt as 
you do. When I thought a great deal about 
God, my dead friends and heaven, and after 
awhile the shrinking from death was all gone. 
Do you know Dr. Nelson’s soliloquy under the 
solitary tree in the prairie ? — 

‘ Oh, the joys that are there, mortal eye hath not seen I 
Oh, the songs they sing there, with hosannahs between I 
Oh, the thrice blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses I 


62 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Oh, brightness of brightness I the pearl gate uncloses I 
Oh, white wings of angels I Oh, fields, white with roses I 
Oh, white tents of peace where the rapt soul reposes I 
Oh, the waters so still, and the pastures so green I ’ ” 

“ But it is unpleasant to me to think that this 
body which I dress and take care of, which my 
friends love, and which is mg, must be laid away 
in a narrow coffin underground for the worms to 
eat,” said Alice, with a shudder. 

“You do not hesitate to throw away a stray 
hair or nail-paring which was a part of you just 
before. We do sometimes feel reluctant to give, 
up a worn out dress on account of the associa- 
tions we have with it, and it is no wonder if we 
feel so about the body in a greater degree ; but 
it is only a house for us, and it is better to 
realize that we have an existence apart from it. 
Time, and especially pain, will help us, if we 
are trying ; and I think we shall be less selfish if 
we are in the habit of considering our bodies as, 
only servants to us.” 

“ Agnes, you make me feel better every time 


Agnes Avery, 


63 


I see you, and I am glad you were born just for 
the good you do we,” said Alice, earnestly. “ I 
know I could not bear any disappointment about 
leaving school half so comfortably if it were not 
for you. You ought to be the happiest person in 
the world with your good temper and such a 
cheerful heart.” 

Before Agnes replied, Mrs. Hathaway came in 
from the house of the next neighbor. 

“ There are some' ladies coming. I can’t make 
out who they are, but they look like the real 
gentry,” said she. 

She had hardly arranged herself behind a 
crack of the bedroom door when Kate Allen 
came in with Miss Esther Gordan, the district 
school-teacher. 

“Pooh!” said Mrs. Hathaway, addressing 
herself to the door hinge. “ To think I should 
mistake Kate Allen for a lady ! ” 



CHAPTER XL 

“ That is best that lieth nearest.” 

BOUT ten minutes before, Miss Esther 
Gordan had pinned her shawl with 
mathematical precision, put on her best 
bonnet, and taken her handkerchief by 
precisely the centre. 

“ It is not my place, of course, to call on Miss 
Avery first, but as I do not wish to be needlessly 
formal I will go with you,” she said, standing 
up stiff and straight in Mr. Allen’s little back- 
parlor. Really, Miss Allen, is it customary in 
this place to make calls in a sun-bonnet? ” she 
added, seeing Kate take hers by one string. 

( 64 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


65 


“ Sometiines it -is,” answered Kate, making a 
face at herself in the glass. 

“ It may be well enough here, but it would 
never do with returned Miss Gordon, taking 
her card-case. 

“ I should think you would hardly find 
enough to occupy your time profitably,” said she, 
a few minutes after, seating herself with due 
propriety in one of Agnes’s splint chairs, and 
looking about her. 

“ I usually manage to keep busy, though I 
haven’t accomplished much to-day,” answered 
Agnes, smiling. 

“ Take care of the minutes and the hours will 
take care of themselves,” returned Miss Gordon, 
sitting a httle straighter and speaking with a 
manner befitting one who had taught school 
twelve terms and had commenced on the thir- 
teenth. “ I should think you would feel that 
your life was running to waste when you are 
employing yourself about these menial duties 
that belong to servants and those who have no 


5 


66 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

desire for culture. A person t)f your intellect 
and capability ought to be improving your mind 
instead of spending your time in taking thought 
for the animal instincts of our nature.” 

“ I always think,” replied Agnes, “ that our 
duty lies in doing those things well which are 
put in our way. It would be very pleasant to 
be able to devote more time to reading and study, 
and I should be glad to have my duty lie in that 
direction, but as it does not, it is comfortable to 
remember that God will accept the lowest service 
if it is faithfully performed.” * 

“ Undoubtedly He will accept even a low ser- 
vice faithfully performed if one is capable of 
nothing higher, but I regard it as purely a waste 
of your talents and energies to live here and do 
housework for your father. If he appreciates 
what you have already done for him as he ought, 
he would immediately give you sixty dollars. 
The least he can do — and with this you will be 
able, with economy, to go a year to Mount Holyoke 
Seminary, and fit yourself for a teacher. Then 


Agnes Avery, 


67 


you will be in tbe way, both of doing good and 
of self-improvement. As for your father, he 
ought to hire an Irish woman who has not a 
mind for learning anything higher than making 
bread and washing shirts.’’ 

Before Miss Gordon had ended, Mrs. Hatha- 
way having decided that she was nobody to be 
afraid of, advanced through the door and now 
joined in the conversation. 

“ It is a great deal to have a good home, 
young woman,” said she, “you don’t seem to 
think of that, but I know what it is to be tumb- 
led about the world, and nobody can tell till 
they come to feel the need of a home what a 
blessing it is, especially when they are out of 
health as I am.” 

Miss Gordon turned at the sound of a strange 
voice, and looked at the speaker with her light 
gray eyes open very widely a moment, then said 
to Agnes, “ Who is this person ? ” 

“ This is Mrs. Hathaway, she is living with 
us,” answered Agnes. 


68 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

“ You needn’t be afraid to say I am supported 
by the town,” spoke' up Mrs. Hathaway. I 
don’t consider that as any disgrace. My hus- 
band paid taxes here, and I have just as good a 
right to get my living out of the public as the 
President has. I can tell you I had as nice a 
home as any of you while Hezekiah was living, 
before he took to drinking, and run out his prop- 
erty. I might have had a home now if I had 
only known how things would be. I suppose I 
might have been your mother, Kate.” 

“ I want to know, Mrs. Hathaway ! What a 
pity that it did not happen so ! ” said Kate, with 
a serious countenance. 

“ Yes I ” continued Mrs. Hathaway, more de- 
cidedly ; “ I expect I might. When I was a girl 

I was about as well-looking as any of them. I 
could dance like a top, and I used to be invited 
to all the sleigh-rides and parties about here. 
Your father never really asked for my company, 
but 1 thought he would if it hadn’t been that I 
was going with Hezekiah Hathaway when he 


Agnes Avery, 


69 


first come tp town. Well, it happened just as it 
did ! Hezekiah made as good a husband as the 
most, I expect, before he took to drinking, and 
if I had a steady home now I wouldn’t com- 
plain.” 

Miss Gordon did not continue the subject 
which this narration interrupted, but she told 
Kate as they went home that it was very painful 
to see one like Miss Avery, with a good mind, 
wasting her life in household drudgery. 

“ There is not a person of my acquaintance 
who does more good to everybody who comes in 
her way than Agnes Avery,” replied Kate, warm- 

ly- 

“Her sphere is certainly limited, and she 
should endeavor to enlarge it,” returned Miss 
Gordon. 

“ Do you not know she has a spinal disease, 
and cannot go out ? I think she shows a wonder- 
ful degree of energy to keep up and do what she 
does,” said Kate, expending her displeasure on a 
way-weed blossom which she picked in a hundred 
pieces. 


70 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ Then she is abusing her body as well as her 
intellectual powers. She ought to take all the 
exercise she can bear out of doors — let her ride 
if she isn’t able to walk — and devote herself 
to study when in the house. I have a work on 
the treatment of the human system which I 
must loan her.” 

Kate made no reply, “ when one is so un- 
reasonable as a donkey there is no use in wasting 
words,” she thought to herself, demolishing a 
whole colony of way-weeds. 

Meantime, Mrs. Hathaway, standing on the 
doorstep and looking after them, ejaculated con- 
temptuously, “ She called me a person ! I’m no 
more a person than she is, I’d have her to know I 
The schoolmistress is nothing but an upstart 
as I consider. She is more impudent than Kate 
Allen and not so good-looking either. She 
needn’t come preaching up to Agnes,” she con- 
tinued to soliloquize after betaking herself to the 
bed. ‘‘Agnes knows more than five like her, 
and I reckon Agnes is a Christian too.” 


Agnes Avery, 


71 


“ Do you remember the last line of tbe poetry 
you gave me yesterday ! ” said Agnes, with a 
look of quiet satisfaction, after she and Ahce 
Irving were left alone again. 

“If I live the life He gave me, 

God will turn it to His use I ” 




CHAPTER XII. 

“When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.” 

HE robins and roses had gone, and the 
crickets and cardinal flowers had come in 
their places. There was a fragrance of 
ripening grapes in the air, and, here and 
there, scarlet and orange branches on the maples 
made brilliant contrast against the surrounding 
green. The grain was reaped, and standing in 
stocks about the fleld, and, although there had 
been no frost as yet, a dull brown was beginning 
to creep over the hills. It was the time of corn- 
harvest and fall honse-cleaning. 



( 72 ) 


Agnes Avery, 


73 


Agnes’s morning glories had thriven past all 
expectation. They did not grow in the broken 
water-pot after all, a 'special committee, consist- 
ing of Willy Allen and Charlie Hunter, assisted 
by the advice and consent of Nelly and Agnes, 
having decided they needed something larger. 
So the boys constructed a curious box with legs 
made of old broomsticks which brought it nearly 
as high as the window-seat and gave the plants 
the advantage of sunshine. Some pieces of 
broomstick at the sides supported a hoop, around 
which the tendrils were trained, and every morn- 
ing it blossomed into a wreath of purple, and 
pink, and white morning glories. Besides, Alice 
Irving had planted some sweet peas in the box 
when nobody saw, so it was very surprising to 
Agnes as well as the children, to see, one morn- 
ing, the fragrant pea flowers suddenly blossoming 
in the wreath. The vine had been hidden by 
the thick leaves of the morning glory, and 
nobody had noticed it before. 

“Quite a pretty pot of posies,” said Mrs. 
Hathaway. 


74 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

And as for Mr. Avery, he asked everybody 
who came in how they liked his flower garden, 
appearing to believe he had proposed, arranged, 
and taken all the care of it. 

The sun was shining on the wreath of morning 
glories ; it was turning the tin teapot into silver, 
and touching Agnes’s hair with a golden tinge as 
the little family were gathered about the 
breakfast-table. 

But in the midst of the meal the door opened 
with a sudden clack and bang, and in dashed 
Mrs. Wilkinson. 

“I want to know if you haven’t finished your 
breakfast yet ! I got mine all out of the way an 
hour^ and a half ago. Why didn’t you have a 
great kettle on, full of hot water so I could 
begin to clear away ? I guess I will commence 
on the buttery first,” she said. 

Then followed the clatter and rattle of tin 
pans, earthen jars, boxes, and pails, as the pair 
of vigorous hands proceeded to clear the upper 
shelves of their contents, preparatory to a 
general scrubbing and putting to rights. 


Agnes Avery, 


75 


When Mrs. Wilkinson was about, it always 
seemed as though a njoderately-sized . engine, 
having run off the track,, had steamed into the 
house, and the best thing to be done was to keep 
from under the wheels as much as possible. 

“ Well, now you have come to see to things, 
Mrs. Wilkinson, I can be spared as well as not,” 
said Mr. Avery, who was of this opinion, putting 
on his blue frock. “ I have got Stephen 
Nicholfield helping me cut my corn to-day, and 
he will be here to dinner, Agnes.” 

“ I am glad to see the last of him,” quoth 
Mrs. Wilkinson, whisking off the table-cloth to 
make room for the contents of the shelves. “ It 
is no place for a man to be round under foot 
house-cleaning days. And don’t he know better, 
either, than to take this time for having Stephen 
here to dinner ? Well, you had better boil the 
pot, that makes hearty eating, and men folks 
mostly like it ; it suits me, too, about as well as 
anything. My mother used to say no girl was’nt 
fit to be married till they understand how to 


76 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

get up a good boiled dish, I will put the pot right 
on, it is full time.” 

So saying, she lifted it to its place over the 
fire, knocking down one of the covers and dashing 
part of a pail of water on to the stove as she 
proceeded to fill the pot. Agnes fell in with 
every proposition quietly, knowing well it was 
the easier way; and Mrs. Hathaway gave an 
extra hitch of her gown which betokened satis- 
faction; for not only mere “boiled victuals,” her' 
especial delight, but she also enjoyed particu- 
larly to watch and direct the preparation. 

“I hope, Agnes,” said she, “you’ll boil the 
pork longer than you did the last time. I 
reckon it wasn’t done quite enough then. 
There is a right way, and a wrong way to do 
everything and it is most as easy to do it the 
right way if you have somebody to tell you how.” 

Mrs.. Wilkinson gave a grunt which indicated 
contempt, but did not condescend to express her 
opinion in any other way. “Shall I begin on 
your father’s bedroom or yours, first?” she 


Agnes Avery, 


77 


asked Agnes. “ These shelves ought to have a 
chance to dry before I put back the dishes. 
Vain old thing ! ” she continued as Mrs. 
Hathaway went out of doors to watch some 
passerby out of sight. “You must have a sight 
of patience to bear with her.” 

“ Oh, I don’t notice all she says. She is get- 
ting old and little things seem more important to 
her than they did once. She hasn’t as much to 
think of now you know,” Agnes replied. 

“ I tell you she has only broken into her nat- 
ural way. I have known Deborah Hathaway — 
Deborah Weatherbee that was, — girl and 
woman, these fifty years, and she hasn’t changed 
so very much. She was always as meddlesome 
as a monkey and not half so attractive. She 
was a selfish, vain minx and I always despised 
her.” 

“ I can’t make out who them folks be. They 
had a slick looking team, but it wasn’t any horse 
I am used to seeing. Like enough it is company 
from off going to the Allens. They iiave a sight 


78 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

of visitors, one time and another,” said Mrs. 
Hathaway, returning from the door. 

Then she lifted the pot lid and added, “ The 
water is boiling like everything ; it is time to put 
the pork right in.” 

“ It seems to me, if I were you, I would take 
my chair and sit down out of the way. Miss 
Agnes, and I will try to get through the work 
without any help, said Mrs. Wilkinson slamming 
the door after her by way of emphasis, as she 
went into the bedroom with a scrub-brush. 

“ Hannah Wilkinson was always an overbear- 
ing, obstreperous thing and I don’t see as age 
improves her. I am as good as she is, any day, if 
I be town charge, and I’ll have her to know she 
can’t rule the whole world,” muttered Mrs. 
Hathaway, standing straighter and stiffer than 
ever. 

‘‘It isn’t worth minding, Mrs. Hathaway, 
everybody has their whims, as father says, and 
I think it is our best way not to cross Mrs. Wil- 
kinson more than we can help when she is here 


Agnes Avery, 


79 


at work. We shall be in a poor plight if she 
gets offended and leaves us, you know.’^ 

Agnes’s confidential manner, together with 
Mrs. Hathaway’s desire to hear what news Mrs. 
Wilkinson might happen to relate, had a decided 
effect ; and though she kept on a defiant, uncon- 
quered look, she drew her chair a little to one 
side and sat down. 

The hours went by until the tall clock finally 
struck thirty-six times, according to an absurd 
vagary it sometimes indulged in. The closets 
and bedrooms, by this time, were as clean and 
fresh, as strong, willing hands could make them ; 
and now Mrs. Wilkinson seated herself and took 
a pinch of snuff. 

“ Because there is no use,” she said, “ in be- 
ginning on the kitchen till the men have eaten 
their dinner and gone. They always have a 
powerful faculty at tracking in dirt and making 
litter in a clean room.” 

Agnes was secretly glad to have the slopping 
of water, the slamming of doors, and knocking 


80 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

around of furniture cease for a time ; and went 
about disliing up the dinner in a great blue plat- 
ter, which was the fashion her father most ap- 
proved. 

“ I reckon boiled victuals ain't worth half as 
much messed out in dishes,’^ said Mrs. Hathaway, 
coming to overlook the operation. “ Up to Liv- 
ermore’s, where I lived last year, they used to 
take up everything by itself, and smash up the 
turnips, too. The things don’t keep so warm, 
and they don’t taste nothing so good neither. I 
consider the turnips are just about spoiled, 
smashed up fine just as if they were cold ones 
warmed over. ’Twasn’t the way I was used to 
do, and it never’ll seem right to me.” 

“ Turnips are turnips, and cabbage is cabbage, 
whether they are on one plate or ten,” senten- 
tiously remarked Mrs. Wilkinson. 

She did not wait for an answer, holding Mrs. 
Hathaway in much the same light she did her 
husband’s black dog Ben ; to be treated with si- 
lent contempt, unless he happened to get under 


Agnes Avery, 


81 


foot. So she went on to say, “ I don’t care if 
you set the cold tea on the stove to heat up, and 
I’ll have a cup with my dinner, seeing I am 
cleaning house to-day.” 

Agnes brought the teapot, and Mrs. Hathaway 
being by no means inclined to be left out of any- 
thing, immediately came and raised the lid. 

“ You had better put in another pinch and a 
little water. I shall want some tea if the rest 
have it.” 

“Well, Deb Hathaway!” said Mrs. Wilkin- 
son, rousing as though Ben had put his nose in 
her plate, “ I would try to have some mind of 
my own, and not be tied up to anybody’s apron 
string. You may take the teapot off again, 
Agnes, I guess I won’t have any.” 

Mrs. Hathaway did not appear to hear this, 
but began to busy herself drinking a swallow of 
some kind of dark-looking medicine from the 
neck of a bottle, which she called “ drops to give 
her an appetite,” and when she had gone into 
the bedroom to put it away, Agnes said, quietly. 


6 


82 Agnes and her Neighbors. 

laughing, “ never mind her, Mrs. Wilkinson, 
she has her own peculiar ways, hut we ought to 
be patient with them, seeing we all have ways of 
our own.^^ 

“ Well, I suppose you are right. Miss Agnes, I 
guess we have. The old thing isn’t worth mind- 
ing, that is a fact,” assented Mrs. Wilkinson, 
presently, with some reluctance. 

So the teapot was replenished and allowed to 
remain on the stove. 

Culture of the head is good, culture of the 
heart is better, but blessed are they who have 
both, and blessed is the world because of them. 
Agnes, refined in mind and manner, and over- 
flowing with that truest courtesy which is a token 
of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, kept all day 
the discordant jarring elements in quiet, if not in 
harmony. Mrs. Hathaway and Mrs. Wilkinson 
drank their tea with a tolerable show of peace, 
revived old stories, and commented on the passing 
gossip of the day. By appropriate remarks and 
timely questions, ' Agnes carefully guided the 


Agnes Avery. 


83 


conversation in harmless channels without ap- 
parent design. What was still better, she showed 
to these two women, both so out of tune with the 
beautiful spirit and teachings of our heavenly 
Master, that she had something which they had 
not, something which kept her soul in perfect 
peace. 

But Mrs. Hathaway could not quite give up 
her old habit of interfering, and as Mrs. Wilkin- 
son again whisked off the table-cloth and went 
about her cleaning with the tread of a young el- 
ephant, and the jar of a small earthquake, she 
said, — 

“ I shouldn’t care nothing about washing the 
inside of that door. It is all out of sight.” 

She was answered at first only by an extra 
dashing of water and scrubbing of brushes, ^ then 
Mrs. Wilkinson found voice to say, — 

“ When I clean house, I clean it, in sight or 
out of sight. Some folks are born slovenly and 
can’t be broke of it, I am thankful I m not of 


that class.” 


84 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Mrs. Hathaway was not a bit daunted by this 
suggestive speech, and was ready with a suitable 
reply when Agnes broke in, — 

“ Well, Mrs. Wilkinson if you won’t make us 
so clean we shall not know ourselves, you may 
do it your own way. It wouldn’t do to get lost 
in our own house, you know,” said she, laughing, 
and expecting nothing more than a smile in 
return from Mrs. Wilkinson. 

But to her surprise, after a little silence, Mrs. 
Wilkinson dropped her scrubbing-brush and 
rubbing the corner of her apron across her eyes, 
said in a broken voice, — 

“ I am ashamed of myself getting out of tune 
so easy and talking so fiercely. Anybody would 
think I was old enough to do better. Here is 
this patient, Christian girl with a father worse 
than Job’s three friends, and Wilkinson, and the 
black cur all put in a lump, aiad she is like a bed 
of posies with the sun shining on it from morn- 
ing till night. It is part nature, I suppose, but it 
is something more. It is religion. ' And it is 


Agnes Avery, 


85 


wortli having. What an old fool I have been ! 
But the good book says He didn’t come to call 
the righteous. He came for sinners, and he 
couldn’t find a fitter subject than me. I wish I 
could live different. I wish I could live to 
please Him. And I mean to begin 

Then she picked up her brush, and turning her 
back, began her work again in silence. 

Presently Mrs. Hathaway got up and went 
into the bedroom, coming out after awhile with 
very red eyes and an unusually gentle manner, 
while Agnes, touched beyond expression, sent 
up to the Heavenly Father an earnest prayer 
that the .Holy Spirit might complete the good 
work that seemed begun in the heart of this 
rough, hard woman. 

The prayer was heard and answered, for from 
that day Mrs. Wilkinson, faulty and quick- 
tempered still, showed daily in her life that she 
was trying, though a great way off, to follow in 
the footsteps of the meek and lowly One. 

And it was the light of Agnes’s little candle 
that helped to show her the road. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

Her virtues blossom daily, and pour out 
A fragrance upon all who in her j)ath 
Have a blest fellowship. 

Willis. 

AVE you lost anything, Mrs. Hathaway ? ” 
asked Agnes, coining into the kitchen and 
finding Mrs. Hathaway upon her hands 
and knees in a corner. 

“ I am trying to find where that cricket is, 
so’s to kill him, and I can’t. He stops his noise 
as soon as I begin to look,” she replied. 

“ I don’t blame him if he suspects your motivei 
But why do you want to kill the cricket ? Don’t 
you like to hear it ? ” 

( 86 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


87 


“ Like to hear ’em ! No, I guess I don’t ! 
They make a dreadful melancholy, lonesome 
sound ; hut I could bear that well enough, if it 
wasn’t that I’m afraid of their gnawing my 
stockings. I make it a point to kill all I can 
find, but it doesn’t d© much good; they are 
spiteful tilings and if you kill one, seven of its 
relations will come to take its place and gnaw 
the things of the 'person that killed it. They 
know, somehow^ who it was,” affirmed the old 
lady, impressively. 

“ Then I am sure,” replied Agnes, “ I would 
not kill the first one if it has such a bad effect. 
For my part I would rather have a stocking 
gnawed now and then, than lose the crickets, 
though I never was aware they did anything of 
the kind. But here is the paper. Wouldn’t you 
like me to read it to you ? ” 

“ Has the paper come ? ” inquired Mrs. Hatha- 
way eagerly, forgetting both the cricket and her 
disgust at Agnes’s bad taste. “ I have kept a 
smart lookout, but somehow Anderson will man- 


88 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

age to slip by in spite of me almost always. 
Yes, I don’t much care if you read over the 
deaths and marriages and the new advertisements 
if there are any.” 

So she seated herself with a hitch of expecta- 
tion by the side of Agne«, and was beginning to 
give her close attention, when a tall woman with 
a weary face appeared in the doorway, with a 
brilliant bouquet of dahlias and hydrangeas in her 
hand. 

“ How do you do, both of you ? I ought to 
apologize for not dropping in oftener when I 
know how shut up you are, Agnes, with your 
poor health ; but really, I have so much to do I 
scarcely get time to go out anywhere. I am 
almost inclined to envy you your leisure to read,” 
she said, seeing the paper in Agnes’s hand, “ I 
always feel if I merely stop to look the paper 
over that I am losing just so much time ; and as 
for a hooh^ I can hardly catch a moment during 
the day to read my Bible. 1 tell Mr. Cotterill 
frequently that I shall actually become as igno- 
rant as the brute creation.” 


Agnes Avery, 


89 


“You must find a great deal to do, with your 
family, if you do not keep, help,” Agnes said, 
when her visitor had stopped for breath. “ But 
do sit down in this chair and rest for now.” 

“ I always do all my own work,” Mrs. 
Cotterill resumed, as she- took the proffered seat. 
“ My husband would be frightened and think we 
were coming to poverty immediately if I should 
.have a girl. And on the whole, I prefer to do 
alone, and have things done my own way. 
Besides, a girl’s board, with what she would 
waste, is fully equal to her wages, and I find it 
hard enough to get money for my own necessary- 
expenses. It was only to-day I Avas telling my 
husband I needed a new calico dress, and he said 
he hadn’t a cent of money by him. I assure you 
I dread to see the bottom of the sugar-tub and 
flour-barrel, Mr. Cotterill always looks as though 
he felt so blue when I tell him we are out of 
anything.” 

Then she stopped again for breath, and Agnes 
said, “ You would really make us think you were 


90 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

poor, if we didn’t know that Mr. Cotterill owns 
one of the best farms in town.” 

Mrs. Cotterill was evidently gratihed by this 
remark, however she continued, “ The farm is 
well enough, but we are not quite out of debt 
for it yet, and interest- money counts up very 
fast. Then our children are growing, and we 
ought to be laying by something for them. The 
expense of giving Alphonzo and Lorenzo a lib- 
eral education is a great deal. I have often 
thought if the twins had been girls, I might have 
had some help by this time.” 

“Mrs. Cotterill,” spoke up Mrs. Hathaway, 
who had been trying to find an opening for some 
time, “I want to inquire after your husband’s 
father and mother.” 

“ They are quite feeble and it isn’t likely they 
will ever be any better,” was the reply. 
“ Father Cotterill can’t get up without help, and 
Mother isn’t much better. I don’t wish to com- 
plain, but the care of them adds a great deal to 
my work, and I have no one to take a single 


Agnes Avery, 


91 


step for me. I get quite discouraged sometimes, 
when I stop to think how little my life amounts 
to, and I am almost ready to believe it would be 
quite as well if I had never been born.” 

“ Mrs. Cotterill, you ought not to feel so,” said 
Agnes, earnestly. “ It is a great thing to bring 
up five boys and give them good physical and 
moral training, if you accomplish nothing more. 
Only think of giving immortality to so many 
souls.” 

Mrs. CotteriU looked oppressed rather than 
cheered by this reflection. 

“ I feel,” said she, “ we are living such dry, 
dull lives that they are hardly worth having. 
We start at daylight and work on till bedtime 
like slaves. My hours are filled with washing, 
ironing, churning, and baking, from Monday 
until Saturday, hardly getting much rest from 
labor even on Sunday. Out of doors it is just 
the same — work, work, work, — and what does 
it all amount to ? The hoys are coming up in 
this kind of way, and they know if they get any- 


92 Agnes and Her Neighbors* 

tiling more than a decent common-school educa- 
tion, as the twins are trying to do, we must all 
work the harder and live the poorer for it. Life 
doesn’t seem worth all the trouble we take to 
keep it.” 

As she spoke, a look of determined melancholy 
settled over her careworn features, making the 
lines deeper and the eyes sadder. 

The sunset clouds were flushing up in yellow 
and orange and red, and they lighted Agnes’s 
face as she repeated softly, “ For here we have 
no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” 

Mrs. Cotterill’s eyes did not brighten, and she 
said in the same dispirited tone, “We do not 
live much as though we believed it. One would 

# t 

think, to see how we toil and spend our strength 
for the things of the world, that there was noth- 
ing beyond.” 

“ We are obliged to clothe and. feed our bodies 
while we have the use of them,” said Agnes, 
cheerfully, “ but if our lot is cast in the midst of 
labor and suffering, we have a great support and 


Agnes Avery. 


93 


comfort in knowing that this hard life is not the 
whole of our existence but only the beginning. 
And to us, if we are Christians, the life to come 
will resemble this only as the full-blown flower 
is like the seed. We have the assurance that in 
this world we shall have tribulation, you know, 
and therefore we need not feel surprised and 
unprepared when we are not placed just to our 
taste. So we must deliberately make up our 
minds to take what comes to us, not only bearing 
it patiently, but I believe it is our duty really 
to be hapyy in spite of our circumstances ; not 
allowing ourselves to dwell in our thoughts on 
what is unpleasant in our life. And if there is 
nothing pleasant to think of in our earthly 
duties, we can alwaj^s think of Heaven and so 
find ourselves lifted above the annoyances of 
earth. I often think how strange it must seem 
to angels looking from the heights above to see 
what trifles disturb us here ; and when we are 
done with our bodies we shall wonder such 
transient troubles ever had such power over us. 


94 Agnes and Her Neighbors . 

Agnes’s words had more weight with her 
friends because they knew she did not speak idly, 
but of that which she had known and lived ; 
and Mrs. Cotterill was drawn away from the 
remembrance of her monotonous duties of work 
and care. As the brightness faded out from the 
west, and twilight deepened, they still thought 
and spoke of the immortality of glory and happi- 
ness which they trusted awaited even them — 
two humble, weary laborers in an obscure corner 
of the earth. 

“ I wish you would sing ‘ Homeward Bound,’ 
to us, Mrs. Cotterill,” said Agnes, as the stars 
began to come out, one by one, and the moon 
showed its golden rim above the hill. 

Mrs. Cotterill had a sweet-toned voice, and it 
was in harmony with the quiet of the autumnal 
twilight, as she sang, — 

“ Out on an ocean all boundless we ride, 

■We’re homeward bound.. 

Tossed on the waves of a rough restless tide, 
We’re homeward bound. 


Agnes Avery, 


95 


Far from the safe, quiet harbor we’ve rode, 
Seeking our Father’s celestial abode, • 
Promise of which on us each He bestowed ; 
We’re homeward bound I 

“ Wildly the storm sweeps us on as it roars, 
We’re homeward bound. . 

Look I Yonder lie the bright heavenly shores, 
We’re homeward bound. 

Steady, Oh pilot, stand firm at the wheel. 
Steady, we soon shall out-weather the gale ; 
Oh, how we fly ’neath the loud creaking sail, 
We’re homeward bound I 

‘‘Down the horizon the earth disappears, 

We’re homeward bound. 

Joyful, Oh, comrades. No sighing or tears ; 

We’re homeward bound. 

Listen I What music comes soft o’er the sea ? 
‘Welcome, thrice welcome and blessed are ye.’ 
Can it the greeting of Paradise be ? 

We’re homeward bound I 

“ Into the harbor of heaven now we glide, 
We’re home at last. 

Softly we drift on its bright silver tide, 

W e’re home at last. 

Glory to God I All our dangers are o’er, 

We stand secure on the glorified shore, 


96 Agne% and Her Neighbors. 

‘ Glory to God ! ’ we will shout evermore, 

We’re home at last I ” 

There was a silence when the last note died 
away, and even Mrs. Hathaway forehore to 
interrupt it. Each thought of the beautiful 
home in the invisible country which awaits the 
dwellers under low as well as lofty roofs — if so 
be they are found following in the footsteps of 
Christ our Saviour. 

But remembrance of the imperative, homely 
duties of every-day life soon called Mrs. Cotterill’s 
tired spirit back from its brief respite. It came, 
however, refreshed and strengthened to take up 
the burden of life again. She too had seen the 
shining of Agnes’s little candle. 

So she went home to her pantry and her dairy ; 
and her husband was astonished to see the peace- 
ful shining in her face, and to hear her singing 
softly to herself as she stirred the batter, and 
washed the pails, — 

“ Steady, Oli pilot, stand firm at the wheel ; 

Steady, we soon shall out-weather the gale ; 


Agnes Avery. 


97 


Oh, how we fly ’neath the loud creaking sail, 
We’re homeward bound I ” 

Thus it was, that for Mrs. Cotterill, as for 
many another, Agnes Avery by her quiet exam- 
ple and cheerful heart had inspired peacefulness 
in the place of discontent, and brought out the 
sacredness underlying common things ; and thus : 

“ The miracle again was wrought, 

And water turned to wine.” 

But before' Mrs. Cotterill had quite disap- 
peared in the gathering twilight, Kate Allen 
came in. 

“ Something must be going to happen,” said 
she, “ if Mrs. Cotterill has been making a call. I 
didn’t know she ever went farther than the 
clothesline and woodpile, excepting on Sunday. 

“ She got as far as here, for a wonder,” replied 
Mrs. Hathaway ready as ever to assist in the 
conversation, “ And she is just as full of her 
complaints as usual. You would think she was 
worked half to death, and hadn’t enough to eat, 


7 


98 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


neither. There she is, with a good home and 
plenty to do with^ and thinks she has a hard time 
I wonder how she would bear it to be in my 
place. No home, and so out of health, too.’^ 




CHAPTER XIV. 

Heaven pities winter — shivering in the cold — 

And wraps him — angel white — in spotless snow. 

Mrs. Brooks. 

f HE year wore itself away day by day un- 
til ‘ New Year’s ’ morning came at last. 
Clear, and cold, and glistering, and full of 
beauty. 

Yes. And what should you think of walking 
over fences, and taking your sled right up a high 
drift to the shed-roof, then sliding down from the 
ridgepole ? 

“ Oh, Miss Agnes ! ” cried little Johnny Hun- 
ter, bursting in all out of breath, “ you ought to 
have seen me, and Nelly, and Charley come licker- 

( 99 ) 


100 Agnes' and Her Neighbors, 

tysplit down the hill all on one sled ! I don’t be- 
lieve the cars could begin to keep up, and you 
never saw such a crust as there is. It is strong 
enough to bear an elephant, I guess. Anyway, it 
bears Ponto, and he is very heavy for a dog, fa- 
ther says so.” 

Johnny had been coasting down the hill be- 
hind Mr. Avery’s house with his elder brother 
and sister ; but the cold, getting the better of 
his manhood and his mittens, had sent him in to 
warm at Agnes’s stove. 

“ I wish I had a cent, and then I wish a gin- 
gerbread-cart would go by ! ” said Johnny, after 
awhile. 

“ Wouldn’t bread and butter do ? ” asked 
Agnes, bringing him a slice. 

“ Thank you ! ” said Johnny, making a bow 
like a duck. “ I didn’t ask for anything to eat, 
did I ? Ma says that is unpolite,''^ 

“ Oh ! no indeed, not a bit of it,” replied Ag- 
nes. 

Then she admired his new red tippet his 


Agnes Avery, 


101 


grandmother sent him at Christmas, as much as 
he wished, and listened to a description of the 
whistle the baby got from the same kind soul at 

the same time. 

% 

“ It is just as cunning as can be ! It looks like 
a teapot, and you must take and fill it with water 
and blow in the spout, then it sounds* just like a 
canary bird singing ; and the baby can whistle 
it herself,” said Johnny. 

When Nelly came in to take him home, Agnes 
was in the midst of Mrs. Sherwood’s story of 
“ The Little Woodman and his Dog Caesar.” 

Johnny always asked to hear this delightful 
story when he came to Mr. Avery’s, and could 
undoubtedly have related it himself from begin- 
ning to end, but it was none the less interesting 
to him, so he said, “ I can’t go yet, Nelly. Miss 
Agnes has just got to the place where four ways 
met in the forest, and I want to hear how Caesar 
gnawed his rope and ran after William, and how 
he came to his grandmother’s house and a pleas- 
ant voice said ‘ come in I ’ ” 


102 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Nelly was quite willing to hear the story out, 
and even then was in no haste to go. 

‘‘ I wish you could coast and skate, Miss 
Agnes,” said she, earnestly. 

“ It would be very pleasant if I only could, 
but as I cannot, the next best thing is seeing you 
and the others enjoy so much,” Agnes replied. 

“ But I should think you would be real lone- 
some to have to stay right in this room all the 
time and not go away any,” said Nelly, presently, 
looking about the dull room with a pitiful face. 

“ I take long journeys every day. I have 
been a million of miles since yesterday,” said 
Agnes. “ A million of miles.” 

NeUy opened her eyes and her mouth with 
astonishment, and thought about old stories of 
witches riding on broomsticks through the air, 
for she could not imagine what Agnes meant. 

“ Isn’t a million more than ten ? ” asked 
Johnny, who with some prompting could count as 
far as ten. 

“ Oh yes. It is more than a hundred, and a 


Agnes Avery. 


103 


thousand. I expect a million would be as many 
as all the apples in our cellar, wouldn’t it, Miss 
Agnes,” said Nelly, a little fearful that she was 
exaggerating. 

But Agnes reassured her. “I don’t think 
you have a million apples, that would be a great 
many.” 

“ Is it a million miles to Boston ? ” asked 
Johnny, still intent on the pursuit of knowledge. 

“ Oh no ! not half or quarter as far as that ! ” 
answered his wise little sister. “ But please, 
Miss Agnes, what did you mean ? 1 always see 
you here when I come.” 

Agnes put her arm about the child and looked 
into her eyes as she replied, “ The earth is all 
the time on a long journey around the sun, and 
although it goes more than a million of miles 
every day it is a whole year getting around, the 
way is so long.” 

Nelly pondered for a moment on the vast 
thought that has puzzled older heads than hers. 

“ Then what makes everything look just the 
same as it did yesterday ? ” she asked. 


104 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ Because, my dear, everything moves with us 
and the stars move, too. Only the sun stays in 
the same place, hut our earth keeps turning over 
every day, and that makes the sun seem to rise 
and set, when it is only we that move aftet all.” 

“ That is funny ! I should think we would all 
get dizzy and fall off,” said Nelly. 

Then she remembered her first question, and 
repeated it. 

“ But, Miss Agnes, if you have been a million 
miles you don’t see anything new. These are 
just the same chairs you have always had.” 

“ I have all these wonderful things to thinh 
ahout^ you see,” replied her Mend, “ and it is not 
necessary to keep the mind in one small room, if 
the body has to stay there.” 

Nelly went home with her thoughts full of 
this great discovery, and Johnny on the way 
counted ten to the best of his ability, over and 
over, asking every time he finished, “ Is it a 
million now ? ” till at last discouraged at hearing 
Nelly always say, “ Why no I it don’t begin I ” 


Agnes Avery, 


105 


he was quite ready to give up the task when 
Ponto came running to meet them with a good- 
natured kink to his tail and an occasional gruff 
bark of welcome. 

Agnes, shut in from the merry coasting and 
skating, from the brilliant beauty of the land- 
scape, and the invigorating breath of the hills, 
darned and patched old garments. 

“ But who can e’er forget 
How many gentle eyes she’s brightened ; 

How many hearts are warmer yet, 

Whose little burdens she has lightened.” 




CHAPTER XV. 

* The country ever hath a lagging Spring, 

Waiting for May to call its violets forth. 

Bryant. 

HE long New-England winter was over 
at last, and though huge patches of snow 
remained, and the earth looked brown 
and dead, yet the arbutus was budding 
on sunny banks, and there was a smell of Spring 
in the air. But when April came, instead of 
bringing anemones and snowdrops, as she was 
expected to do, she brought a snow storm. For 
two days and nights the large flakes fell, and on 
the morning of the third day, when people put 
away their window curtains and looked out, it was 
( 106 ) 



Agnes Avery, 


107 


snowing. It was not quite like winter though, 
for through all the storm the blue birds kept on 
singing, making sweet prophecies of sunny weath- 
er. 

Agnes heard them, as she, having finished her 
morning work, was lying on the lounge, and re- 
peating to herself Mary Howitt’s sweet words : 

“ I think of angel voices 

When the birds’ songs I hear ; 

Of that celestial city, bright 

With-jacinth, gold and chrysolite. 

When with its blazing pomp of light 
The morning doth appear, ” 

when the door quickly opened, and Alice Irving 
came running in and without stopping to shake 
the snow from her dress, said joyfully, “ Oh, 
Agnes ! I am going back to the seminary next 
term to finish the course, and graduate with my 
class I I don’t think mother has got quite over 
her old objections, but Uncle Everett is up from 
Boston, and he has been talldng over about the 
school with her till she has concluded to have 


108 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

me go back with him to-morrow. Both his 
daughters are there, and mother always depends 
on Uncle Everett’s opinion a great deal.” 

Agnes fully sympathized in Alice’s eager joy. 

“ How good it is that you have been studying 
and keeping up with the class,” she said. 

“ Yes indeed ! I couldn’t go if it were not for 
that ; but Agnes, only think what I have lost by 
staying out so long. I always understand and 
remember a lesson twice as well after it has been 
recited, and talked over by the teachers, and then 
the German I cannot take up now, so that is lost 
You need not think I am ungrateful ; I am only 
wondering why it was ordered that mother 
shouldn’t have come to this opinion sooner when 
she was coming to it at last. It seems like an 
unnecessary trial when it is after all best for me 
to go as it proves. And that is what has made 
it so hard to bear all through. When anything 
comes right straight down one can accept it so 
much easier, but when you can see so plainly 
somebody is doing it, and Providence is being 


Agnes Avery. 109 

meddled with, that is what is so dreadfully try- 
ing/’ 

“ So it is,” replied Agnes, heartily. ‘‘‘ And 
you may be sure David had the same feeling 
when he said ‘ Let me fall now into the hand of 
the Lord, but let me not fall into the hand of 
man,’ But I do feel more and more that what- 
ever happens is in some way not only for our 
discipline but really for our best good if we could 
only see. And if we cannot see, it is just the 
same. And I have come to feel more than ever 
that though events do seem to come about often 
through ‘ Providence being meddled with,’ as 
you say, yet they are no less arranged and or- 
dered, not merely for our best discipline but tru- 
ly for our best good. In looking at my own life 
I see, or at least think I see, very clearly why 
some things which at the time seemed not best 
at all, and were for that very reason most hard to 
bear, have been for good. And so the events 
that have transpired which as yet are very dark 
to me I can, and do, believe are for my best good. 


110 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

‘ What I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
shalt know hereafter ’ has been to me a text of 
wonderful comfort ; and I think one of our joys 
in Heaven will be that we can see the way by 
which we have come, and know that all was real- 
ly ordered for our highest good.’’ 

Thus Agnes, by her little candle, lighted up 
the one dark spot in her friend’s otherwise pleas- 
ant path. And when she parted with her at the 
door, and went back to her own life so narrow 
and dull, she went with a heart full of happiness 
because it was full of sympathy with one who 
was hopeful and happy. 

Never minding herself but thinking all the 
time of others ; that was her secret of cheerful- 
ness and content, that it was which turned the 
water into wine and trimmed the wick of the 
little candle. 


END OF PAET I. 


Agnes and her Jheighhors, 


PART IL 


AT MES. WINTHBOP’S BOAEDING-SCHOOL. 


“ Oh, humbly take what God bestows, 
And, like his own fair flowers, 
Look up in sunshine with a smile, 
And gently bend in showers.” 


(Ill) 




At Mrs. Winthrop’s Boarding-School. 


CHAPTER 1. 

She, if she rules him, never shows she rules ; 

Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, 

Yet has her humor most when she obeys. 

Pope. 

R. ALLEN’S mind, sympathizing with 
his palate, was always put into a com- 
fortable frame by buckwheat cakes and 
maple syrup, as undoubtedly Mrs. Allen 
knew after an experience of twenty-five years, ‘ 
— and she a woman of wit and sagacity ! She 
knew, moreover, that he had just been selling 
some fatted cattle, and that beef had been rising 
in market value. 

8 



( 113 ) 


114 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

“I wonder,” said she, — throwing her cap 
strings hack from her plump, genial face, and 
putting an extra spoonful of sugar in Mr. Allen’s 
teacup — “if Mr. Irving is worth any more 
property than you are.” 

“Well, I consider my place worth quite as 
much as his — the assessors call it more, when 
they make out the tax-list, — and I am inclined 
to think my bank stock doesn’t fall any below 
his,” replied Mr. Allen. 

“ So I supposed,” returned the adroit Mrs. 
Allen. “ But then how can he afford to send 
Alice to boarding-school so much ? I don’t 
believe she is more of a scholar than our Kate 
would be with her advantages. I know Kate 
feels uneasy to be so much behind her mates.” 

Mr. Allen helped himself to a slice of cold 
meat and a spoonful of horse-radish with no sign 
of disturbance, so his wife continued, — ^ 

“ Kate says Mr. Irving’s brother, Mr. Everett, 
is up from Boston, and Alice i§ going back with 
him to-morrow. She expects to graduate at the 
end of the term.” 


At Mrs, WintJirop^s Boarding-school, 115 

Mr. Allen looked up suddenly. 

“ Why don’t you fix out Kate and send her 
along, too ? ” said he. 

“ I don’t know but it would be a good chance,” 
said Mrs. Allen in a meditative way. “ She 
would have company down, and it would be such 
a start for her to room with Alice, being she is an 
old scholar. Then there would be all the con- 
certs, and lectures, and doings in Boston that 
would be worth as much to her as her books, 
maybe. And I have always understood Mrs. 
Winthrop employs the very best of teachers. 
It does seem just the thing for Kate, and I 
would really be glad to give our children an 
opportunity in the world equal to our neighbors. 
What a pity we didn’t think of it in season to get 
Kate ready ! ” 

“There is no need of stopping for that,” 
answered Mr. Allen, decidedly. “We can send 
her a trunk of things afterward just as well.” 

“She needs new dresses if she is going to 
Boston. We should want her dressed as well as 
the other young ladies, you know, father.” 


116 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

“ Of course she must have new clothes/’ 
assented Father. “ You’d better have Miss 
Partenheimer come and sew with you a week ; 
Kate can get along with what she has, for a few 
days, can’t she ? ” ^ 

So Mrs. Allen being finally overpersuaded to 
this arrangement, the matter was, quite decided. 

“ But where is the girl ? Why doesn’t she 
come to supper ? ” asked her father. 

“ She has a fire in her room, and is packing 
her .trunk,” answered the mother, carelessly, “we 
thought she might as well be ready in case you 
should decide she’d better go.” 

Mr. Allen was entirely satisfied. He was 
used to his wife’s diplomacy, and thought, rightly, 
that there had not been her like among women 
since the days of Eve. While she, on her part, 
was of opinion that her husband, having once 
“ made up his mind, was set in his way,” and, 
in common with all men, needed management, 

“ It is well you began to pack your trunk, 
Kate,” she said, when her daughter appeared at 


At Mrs, WintJirop’s Boarding-school, 117 

t 

the supper-table, flushed with, her afternoon’s 
work. “ Father is all engaged to have you start 
right off without any preparation. He has gone 
now to get the horse shod so that he can take 
you to the depot to-morrow morning.” 

That is obliging in him, certainly ; though I 
don’t know but I ought to have felt more compli- 
mented if he had taken longer to decide he 
could do without me ! ” said Kate. Then she 
added, seriously, “ I am really afraid it will be 
hard for you^ mother, if I go away.” 

“ Nonsense, nonsense ! How do you suppose 
I managed to do my work before you were 
born ! You will be at home in season to help 
me through haying, and father is not intending 
to keep so large a dairy as usual this summer — 
only four cows — so don’t have a worrying 
thought about me. I shall do well enough, not 
having you to hinder ! ” 

Saying this, Mrs. Allen prepared to stir up 
some cake for Kate to take along as luncheon in 


the cars. 


CHAPTER 11. 


The blessing of her quiet life » 

Fell on us like the dew ; 

And good thoughts, where her footsteps passed, 
Like fairy blossoms grew. 

Whittier. 

FTER Kate had washed the tea things, 
she said, “ I must go in and see Agnes 
Avery a few minutes to-night, just to 
tell her I am going;’’ and throwing a 
shawl over her head, she ran quickly down the 
well-trodden path, and was directly at the low, 
brown house under the elm-tree. 

She found Mr. Avery reading a newspaper, 
holding the one candle which hghted the room 
( 118 ) 



At Mr8» Wlnthrop^s Boarding-school, 119 

between the paper and his face, so that Agnes 
had only the shadow ; but she took her knitting, 
needing little light for that, and, though she 
would have better liked to study, had no shadow 
of discontent on her face or in her heart. 

Then Kate entered, bringing the freshness of 
the evening air, and the cheerfulest of smiles to 
Agnes’s face, which did not change, (as Kate’s 
did,) when Mrs. Hathaway, hearing voices, rose, 
although she had retired for the night, and ap- 
peared enveloped in shawls in the doorway. 

“ You must see my flower garden, Kate,” said 
Agnes, who saw her friend’s irritation at the 
intrusion. Then she brought forward a tea-cup 
filled with earth, out of which grew a tuft of 
garden violets. The stems were tall and thriv- 
ing, and each one was crowned with purple and 
golden blossoms. 

“ There are twenty-one of them,” said Agnes, 
“ and they are a great enjoyment to me, looking 
so bright and contented, when they have no 
accommodations but a cracked tea-cup and a 


120 Agnes and Ser Neighbors, 

little earth. It is as good as a sermon to me to 
look at them.” 

Kate thought within herself that the flowers 
were only types of the sweet human life that 
adorned the low dark room. And this was as 
good as a sermon to her, 

“I am going to Mrs. Winthrop’s boarding- 
school with Alice Irving, to-morrow,” said she 
presently. 

“ Are you ! ” exclaimed Agnes, delighted. 
“ How pleasant that will be for you both ! ” 

•“ It is a shame, Aggy, you can’t go with us,” 
said Kate warmly. 

The tears came in Agnes’s eyes but they 
did not fall. “ I hope you will find time to write 
me often,” she said pleasantly. I shall want 
to know how you are enjoying yourself. And I 
shall enjoy it all with you.” 

“ It’s dreadful costly to go to boarding-school,” 
put in Mrs. Hathaway, sharply, “ and • I should 
think your folks could find some other way for 
their money. When I was a girl we had to work 


At Mrs, Winthrap' s Boarding-school. 121 * 

for a living, and I wish the girls now-a-days had 
more of it to do.” 

Kate rose directly to go, saying to Agnes, who 
Mlowed her to the door, — 

“ Isn’t Mrs. Meddlesome’s time almost out, so 
that you can enjoy her room in place of her 
company before long ? ” 

“ Father has promised to keep her for another 
year,” Agnes replied. 

“ I would rebel ! ” exclaimed Kate, indignantly 
“ It is enough for you to bear with her one whole 
year, as patient as Job ! I don’t think you are 
required to do any more ! ” 

“ I seem to be,” returned Agnes, smiling. 

“ Mrs. Hathaway cried for a week, and could not 
eat, she was so unhappy about leaving. Then 
father’s sympathy was'^moved, and he said it was 
‘too bad to keep the poor woman tossing about 
so, when she had no home, and was getting old, 
too.’ It does not make much difference after all 
Kate ; such things don’t last always, and there is 
no high road to happiness in this life. If we 


122 ’ Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

take things cheerfully, as they come to us, and 
do the best we can, that is what Christ requires 
of us, not to plan our lives so as to avoid what is 
unpleasant ; and I feel sure everything is 
ordered wisely and in infinite goodness.” 

“ Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit 
the earth,” said Kate, as she gave Agnes a good- 
bye kiss. 

Then she ran quickly home, singing softly as 
she went. 

“ Into this life of death and pain, 

Into this world of strife and scorn, — 

Where rude feet crush the springing grain 
' Where white flowers catch a crimson rain — 

I thank the dear Lord she was born.” 



CHAPTER III, 

’Twas for my accommodation — 

Nature rose wlien I was born. 

Should 1 die, the whole creation 
Back to nothing would return. 

Sun, moon, stars, 'the world you see, 

Sprung, exist, will fall With me I 

Soliloquy of a Water Wagtail, 

Montgomery. 

LL ABOARD ! ” shouted the conductor 
of the Boston train. 

The newspaper-boy jumped off the 
cars and the apple-boy jumped on ; 
smiling faces and tearful ones nodded a last 
good-bye to faces that answered them from the 
platform below. The bell rang, the engine 

( 123 ) 



124 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

puffed and blew, tbe great wheels began to turn 
slowly, then faster and faster, till the whole train 
moved majestically off, leaving the bystanders 
staring foolishly at the track. 

After some lingering glances at the familiar 
landscape flying past them, Alice and Kate 
turned themselves about, to enjoy the amusing 
and novel objects which are never wanting* in a 
journey to girls just from quiet country homes. 

The car was nearly filled, and Mr. Everett 
presently rose to share his seat with a young 
lady who entered. This young person, however, 
immediately took full possession of the whole 
seat, and by an adroit disposal of her dress, 
assisted by a bandbox and extra shawl, left no 
room for the gentleman, but appeared, meanwhile 
as though she had only taken her rights. Mr. 
Everett, a dignified, portly man, looked surprised 
at this specimen of ill-manners, as he passed to 
the rear of the car, where he was obliged to stand. 

Of course, Alice and Kate took a lively dislike 
to the young miss, who, arranging herself com- 


At Mrs, Wintlirop's Boarding-school, 125 

fortably, began to scrutinize the passengers 
through a showy eye-glass. When she perceived 
she had attracted universal attention, she 
dropped her veil and gazed from the window in 
a pensive attitude. Suddenly she discovered 
that the window behind her was open — for, 
with a crowded car and hot fire the air was very 
oppressive, — but Miss shivered, coughed, drew 
her furs about her neck, then abruptly turning 
around, said, “I must trouble you to close that 
window.” 

“ Certainly,” said Kate, closing it ; but she 
directly opened it again, saying to Alice, — 

“ If my lady doesn’t like it this time, she may 
change places with Mr. Everett.” 

As it happened, her attention was immediately 
diverted by a news-boy who just then entered 
with a case of books. She looked them over 
with a deal of parade, stopping to read a little, 
and pricing them dl. 

“ Oh, if you haven’t a copy of the Lamplighter I 
I have been dying to get hold of it ! ” she ex- 


126 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

claimed, settling herself back composedly to read. 
The boy waited a little and then asked, “ Will 
you buy the book. Miss ? 

“ Ob no,” she answered, “ I don’t care to own 
it, but I would like to look it over.” 

“ It isn’t my custom to lend books in the cars,” 
said the news-boy, civilly. 

Thereupon she tossed it to him, saying, “ I ' 
thought pigs were not allowed in the cars.” 

“ So did I till now,” rejoined the youth, going 
away. “ To think that I have lived to be pub- 
licly insulted ! ” said she, tragically. “ I wonder 
what my Uncle Roderick would say ! ” 

Alice only bowed a little in reply, and the 
stranger, opening a small locket which she wore 
suspended by a gold chain around her neck, went 
on in an extravagant apostrophe to “ Uncle Rod- 
erick ” and “ cruel fate.” Then she took a tiny 
portfolio from her travelling basket and occupied 
herself in writing for awhile. 

When the train stopped in Fitchburg, Mr. 
Everett brought Alice and Kate some refresh- 



“ Oh, no,” she answered. “ I do n’t care to own it, bnt I would like 
to look it over.” Page 12G. 






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At Mrs, Winthrop's Boarding-school, 127 

merits, and then the niece of Uncle Roderick dis- 
covered that they were under his care, and ad- 
dressing Kate, said, “ Is that your father ? I am 
afraid he thought me rude in taking his seat, hut 
I would not, on any account, sit with a strange 
gentleman. If I had known he was in company 
with ladies I wouldn’t have minded it so much, 
but Uncle Roderick has often told me that, with 
my attractive face, I cannot be too guarded in 
my manners, and I should die if I were to receive 
any attention from a stranger ! ” 

Before she stopped speaking, an Irishwoman 
entered, with a bundle, a bandbox, a boy, and a 
baby. The cars were just starting, the little boy 
stumbled, the baby began to cry, and the anxious 
mother dropped so suddenly into, the seat with 
our new acquaintance that she had no time to 
offer an' objection or leave it herself, though she. 
started to do the last ; but finding it impractica- 
ble, drew herself. away as far as possible with such 
a forlorn expression that Alice could not help 
laughing out, and Kate said, “ What a relief to 


128 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

see she is safe from the attention of strange gen- 
tlemen ! ” 

But the unconscious re warder of selfishness 
drew little Pat close to her, and dandled the les- 
ser One on her knee with maternal pride. 

“ Isn’t she a real smart young one for only four 
weeks old?” said she. “She weighed eight 
pounds and sixteen ounces the blissed^ day that 
she was born, and she has done nothing but grow 
fat iver sin’. ” 

Her disgusted seatmate deigned no answer, 
and Alice, seeing the mother had more than her 
arms full, coaxed little Pat with a seed-cake to 
sit with her. His clothing did not come from 
Stewart’s, but it looked clean and wholesome ; 
and Alice, who had a “ faculty ” with children, 

. managed to amuse the little fellow and keep him 
tolerably- quiet. ' 

“ Ye be quite too kind, miss, but indade it’s a 
lift ye’ve given me. It’s Amse^has got a nice 
job of work in Boston, and he has sint for me and 
the Childers.” 


At Mrs, Winthro'p’ s Boarding-school, 129 

“ Quite a journey for you,” said Kate. 

“ Indade, and it’s the truth ye’re spakiii’. It’s 
a rael hard job for a feeble body, and I’d sooner 
be standing at the wash tub. Ye see I’m kilt in- 
tirely by Pat over there — little villain that ye 
be,” she said, giving him an affectionate poke. 
“ It’s just mischief, mischief, mischief, all the day 
long ; and when he gets provoked, I tells him he 
hasn’t a drap o’ me blood in his veins, it’s jist 
like the father he is, always onasy and into some 
throuble if I lave him a bit while I mind the 
work. I heard him scrame in the well, and I on 
me bed, and I knew by the scrame he was under 
the water ; so I jumped up and called to me cous- 
in that was minding the house while I lay sick, 
and whin she got him out of the well it was al- 
most drownded that he was, with the water rin- 
ning a big strame from the nose and mouth of 
him. It would have been all over with him in 
three minutes more, and me cousin safid the same. 
The fright of it put me down again two days 
more, and me cousin in bad haste to lave all the 


9 


130 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

time. And what do ye think the leddies would 
say if they knew how ye trate ye’re pour old cat, 
ye naughty b’y ? It was only yesterday, miss, 
that he would have scalt the poor crater, and kilt 
her intirely, if it hadn’t been that I caught his 
arm, jist in time, as he was pitting her into a 
kittle o’ biling water. It was very nasty to do 
that, and I didn’t let him see me laugh at him.” 

This discourse was brought to an untimely 
end by a sudden jolt, and a dissatisfied snort 
from the engine. The cars stopped, and the 
passengers thrust their heads from the windows 
and rushed to the doors. Presently Mr. Everett 
came, and told the girls that the train had run 
off the track and was stopped only three feet 
from the edge of a high embankment, but the 
danger was over, and there would probably be 
only a delay of an hour or so. 

“ The saints pro tic t us ! ” ejaculated the Irish 
woman. Alice and Kate grew pale but did 
not speak, while the young lady in ffont 
screamed. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 131 

“ Mercy ! I am so frightened I know I shall 
die ! Oh dear ! I cannot ride any farther in 
these horrid cars ! Oh ! what shall I do ? ” 

She seemed so distressed that Mr. Everett 
endeavored to soothe her, but she would not try 
to compose herself. 

“ To think I should be called to pass through so 
many annoyances in one morning ! This has 
been a day of disasters,” she said, dismally, “ and 
I had a presentiment of it when I first awoke. 
An unaccountable sadness weighed on my spirits 
even then. Oh ! I wish the solitary tombstone 
in that distant enclosure was marking my grave, 
and I was there at rest ! ” 

Kate looked from the window and laughed, 
but Alice was shocked, and said quickly,— 

“You mustn’t think such things, it isn’t 
right.” 

The girl shook her head. 

“ Perhaps the world uses you well, but it is 
not a friend to me, and I often wish I were 
sleeping in some desolate and lonely graveyard 


132 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

far away from the busy haunts of the heartless 
throng.” 

Alice hardly knew whether to feel pity or 
disgust at this sentimental affectation, but she 
concluded it could not be talked down, and so 
gradually changed the subject. She soon learned 
that her new acquaintance was named Angelina 
Templeton, and that she was on her way to 
“ Mrs. Winthrop’s Boarding-school,” to which 
she was going to please Uncle Koderick, though 
she expected to die of home-sickness. She was 
delighted to hear that Kate and Alice were going 
there, telling Alice she had a presentiment, 
when she first saw her, that they should some 
time be friends; and also that she had long 
wished for one in whose “ sympathetic ear ” 
she “ could pour every sorrow,” and to whom 
she “ could be all the world.” 

As Alice was not ready to reciprocate imme- 
diately this proffer of hearts, she avoided answer- 
ing by asking Miss Templeton if she had no 
mother. 


At Mrs, Winthrop*s Boarding-school, 133 

“ Oh, yes,” was the reply, “ I have a mother 
find a father. My father is one ' of the very 
first men in Douglas. Then there are towards a 
dozen little brothers and sisters — I hate children, 
they are such a bother and trouble. I have 
thought sometimes if my mother were dead what 
touching and beautiful poetry I could write to 
her memory ! ” 

Seeing Alice look shocked, she added, “ Of 
course, I do not really wish her dead. I thought 
you would understand me. I write a good deal 
of poetry, and most of it is very sad. That is 
my taste. I am naturally, oh, so melancholy ! 
And the death of a friend is such a fine subject 
for poetry, you know.” 

Alice was glad when the cars started and 
relieved her from the conversation, which she 
had continued from kindness of heart. 

They met with no further delay, but Angelina 
was constantly screaming, and starting, and say- 
ing, at every opportunity, nobody could tell how 
much she suffered^ all the way, from fear. 


134 


Agnes and her Neighbors, 


Yet Angelina Templeton had really a good 
mind, and pleasing manners, and when she could 
refrain from talking and thinking of self^ she was 
agreeable company. 




CHAPTER IV. 


“ This earth is not designed for heaven, 
And well ’tis so ; 

If perfect bliss were given here, 

Why gaze we at a happier sphere, 

And long to go ? ” 



train passed slowly across Charles 
river and into the depot beyond, scream- 
ing out, “ Come at last ! come at last ! 
And the high granite walls answered 
back, “ At last ! At last I 

“ The blissed Virgin reward ye, and may ye 
always find a friend to ye’re need ! ” said the 
warm Irish heart, as Alice reached her bandbox 
down the steps after her. 


( 135 ) 


136 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Kate Allen, for the first time in a city, looked 
about her with curious eyes, and thought within 
herself how very cordial and kind the men with 
carriages were! Almost as though they were 
old acquaintances. 

“We shall find an omnibus for the seminary 
at one of the front doors, I think,” said Mr. 
Everett, leading the way for the three girls. 

“ I’m sure I should have died of fright if I had 
been alone,” said Angelina. “ I expected until 
last night that my dear Uncle Roderick would 
have been here to meet me, but his ship sailed 
yesterday, Tvasn’t that cruel ? My father could 
not come with me, and I finally consented to 
come alone, as I have been in Boston so many 
times.” 

Nobody paid much attention to the silly girl, 
for the right omnibus was now found. Kate 
was about walking around to enter at the side, 
when, to her utter amazement, Mr. Everett 
showed her to the rear and held his hand to help 
her in. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 137 

“ I thought I wouldn’t he green and tell of it, 
too,” said she, afterward, “but I was fairly 
ashamed to be seen climbing in at the end as 
though it were a haybody. As Miss Gordon 
says ‘ They don’t do so with us ’ and nobody 
eyer told me it was the fasliion in Boston.” 

Thus with good-humored joking Kate passed 
off all her blunders, while she kept on the look- 
out for novelties with untiring interest. 

When the omnibus stopped at the boarding- 
house, several faces looked from the windows, 
and directly the door opening, a group of merry 
girls ran down the steps to greet Alice. There 
were a hundred questions to be asked and 
answered on both sides, and half a dozen eager 
voices talked at once as they entered the parlor. 

“ Are the rooms all taken up for this term ? ” 
asked Alice. 

“ I don’t think there are any desirable rooms,” 
answered Adelaide Davenport, who was nick- 
named “General Intelligence Office” by the 
girls. “ Your old room, number thirty-five, is 


138 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

turned into a music-room. Why didn’t you 
write and engage one ?•” 

“ It was not decided that I could come in sea- 
son to do so. Where is Mrs. Winthrop? ” 

“ She has gone out this afternoon, and won’t be 
in till tea-time,” replied Adelaide. 

While the girls chattered, clustering affection- 
ately about Alice, Kate seated by a window, 
amused herself by looking out toward the street, 
and then about the room, watching and “ making 
up her mind ” about each one of the girls. But 
Angelina withdrew to a sofa at the opposite 
extreme of the parlor, and taking a forlorn and 
desolate attitude, gazed steadfastly at the register 
with as melancholy a countenance as though her 
dearest friend had just been buried under it. 

When the group dispersed, Alice came to her 
and said, “ Are you very tired ? ” 

“Yes, tired of life ! I never was so treated 
before ! ” was the reply. 

“Why, what is the matter?” asked Alice, 
quite astonished. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 139 

“ Oh nothing ! nothing at all ! ’’ returned 
Angelina. “ As long as you are treated with so 
much attention it is of no consequence what 
becomes of me ; but I never was so slighted in 
my life ! ” 

Here she began to cry, and Alice was really 
distressed to know what she should do or say. 

“Don’t make a goose of yourself, Miss Tem- 
pleton,” spoke up Kate, indignantly, “Alice 
introduced us to them and what more could she 
do ? I should hope the girls would be more 
glad to see an old scholar than strangers.” 

This unexpected speech had a better effect 
than sympathy, and gradually Angelina conde- 
scended to lay aside her wounded feelings and to 
enter into an animated description of her father’s 
elegant cottage, and the grounds around it, 
which she said were “ the most splendid in 
Douglas.” 

“ It was late before the governess came ; and 
then she said the house was full, but she would 
try to make some pleasant arrangement for them, 
if they would be patient till after tea. 


140 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I will be patient and do anything else she 
asks me,” said Kate, warmly, after Mrs. Win- 
throp had left the room. 

“ I knew you would like her ! ” answered 
Alice, delighted. 

Oh, she is perfectly beautiful ! And such 
elegant manners ! ” exclaimed Angelina. “ Didn’t 
you notice what a sad look she has at times ? I 
think she must have a delightful history, and 
something melancholy in it ! ” 

Kate’s devotion was soon put to the test. 
For, after tea, Mrs. Winthrop sent for her and 
Alice to come to her own room, and in her 
charming way — explaining how crowded the 
house was, and how difficult to place those girls 
suitably in whom she had not entire confidence 
— said she should consider it a personal favor to 
herself if those girls in whom she could trust 
were willing to make some sacrifice of their 
inclination for the good of the school. 

“I know you, Alice,” she said, “and I think I 
may have equal confidence in your friend. So if 


At Mrs, Winthro'p's Boarding-school, 141 

you are ■willing to take the large attic, and two 
room-mates who will be better for your influence, 
(though they may not add to your enjoyment,) 
you will relieve me, and can be sure you are doing 
good.” 

“ Of course there was no objecting to this ar- 
rangement, though Angelina Templeton was to 
be one room-mate, and Arabella Meachem, — a 
giddy, pretty-faced girl, who was warm-hearted, 
but shallow, and possessed of no fixed principles 
— was to be the other. 

“ Dear ! dear ! ” said Kate, when they were 
alone again. “ I didn’t think she would put us 
at walking upon peas to-night. If Mrs. Winthrop 
hadn’t been so engaging, I would have refused 
out and out.” 

“ Nobody can refuse her anything, she has 
such a winning way with her,” returned Alice. 
“ But I confess neither did I expect our trials 
would commence so soon, though I supposed we 
were to have some in the course of the term.” 

‘‘ I thought we’d had our share of Miss Ange- 


142 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

lina already,” said Kate, “ and I have expected 
to be perfectly happy here as soon as we got rid 
of her society and were settled by ourselves.” 

“ Well,” said Alice, “ there seems to he noth- 
ing for us hut to 'do as Agnes says she does, — 
comfort herself with black Peter’s philosophy. 
She said he ‘ allowed there wasn’t no place short 
of heaven, where roofs didn’t leak sometimes.’ ” 

“ I am glad you spoke of Agnes,” said Kate, 
“ it is quieting to discontent just to think of 
her.” 

So, even at this distance, the lovely example 
of that dear imitator of her God turned the 
bitterness of the cup of self-denial into something 
rich and sweet. 



CHAPTER V. 

Sour discontent that quarrels with our fate. 

Blackmoee. 

H, horrible ! I never was in such a dis- 
mal hole as this before in all my life ! ’’ 
exclaimed Angelina with a shudder as 
she entered the attic chamber. Flinging 
herself into a rocking-chair, she looked about. 

“ Only one bureau, and not a rag of a carpet ! 
I wonder what my mother would say to such 
gentility ! I didn’t know as anybody in this 
civilized country, who pretended to be anybody, 
lived on the bare floor ! It isn’t what I am 
accustomed to ; even our kitchen is carpeted at 
home.’’ 



( 143 ) 


144 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I should think the novelty would please you, 
then,” said Kate, dryly. 

“ It will give me the toothache and neuralgia, 
— that’s what it will do ! ” returned Angelina. 
“ My mother says living on a cold floor is a 
most unhealthful practice, and she will send for 
me home just as soon as she knows what I am 
undergoing in this dreadful place, I am sure of 
that ! ” 

“ So you won’t unpack your trunk, will you ? 
I am sure I wouldn’t ; it will save a great deal 
of trouble,” said Kate, who was hanging up her 
dresses in the large, light closet adjoining. 

Angelina did not notice her remark, but con- 
tinued in the same strain, — 

“ I would leave to-night, if it were not for 
disappointing Uncle Roderick. But I know he 
could not have been aware of the character of 
the hpuse when he recommended it ; he thought 
it was a genteel boarding-school, or he would 
never have allowed me to come.” 

After this, she rocked away in sullen silence, 


At Mrs, WintJirop^s Boarding-school, 145 

which, was far more edifying than her conversa- 
tion, until, having finished unpacking, the girls 
lighted the little shade lamp, and brought out 
their portfolios, preparing to write letters home. 

Then she exclaimed, “ Tin lamps, painted 
green, and shades of the same ! Why, my 
mother- wouldn’t think of putting off the Irish 
girl with such a shabby concern ! ” 

“ Nevertheless, you will find the lamps are 
convenient for studying, and they make a good 
light,” said Alice. 

“ They might be well enough for the country,” 
returned Angelina, “but I think it is really 
mean not to have gas in the city. I expected 
it, and I know Uncle Roderick did. He has 
always been used to good style, and understands 
what it is.” 

“ I am out of patience with you,” said Kate, 
quickly, “We didn’t come here to find fault 
with everything, and make ourselves miserable 
without any reason ; and I advise you either to 
go back where you came from, or to make up 
10 


146 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

your mind to be contented, and stop complaining, 
if you are going to stay here.” 

Angelina was so astonished at this outburst 
that she did not complain again for half an hour, 
occupying herself during that time in composing 
a melancholy poem, commencing, — 

“ I am lonely, very lonely,” 

and informing some imaginary sympathizer that 
she was an object of mirth to the cold, careless 
ones of earth. 

f 

There came, presently, a rush of merry girls 
up the attic stairs. 

“ Upon my word, Alice Irving ! If you aren’t 
all writing for your lives, up here ! Don’t be so 
silly as to waste the last night of freedom in 
this way. You’ll get writing enough before the 
term is out, I promise you ! ” 

The speaker, a lively, curly-haired girl, named 
Georgiana Burton, seized the ink-stand, and ran 
ofP with it as she spoke, and, coming back 
directly, closed their portfolios, saying, “Mrs. 


At Mrs, Winthrop' s Boarding-school, 147 

Winthrop has graciously allowed us to do what 
we please to-night, if we won’t be noisy ; and 
we are going to have a time.” 

“ Why can’t we do as we please to-morrow 
night ? ” asked Angelina. 

Georgiana laughed. “ Oh, you must be a 
new one to ask such a question ! Why, my dear 
fellow-prisoner, we shall have to put on our 
straight jackets, and look neither to the right 
nor the left after the old Griffin comes.” 

“ You oughtn’t to talk so, Georgiana,” said 
Alice. 

“ Oh, no, of course I ought not. I know that 
perfectly well ; but I don’t make any pretension 
to goodness and propriety, you know. Some- 
body miust do the sinning, and I am self-deny- 
ing enough to take the place of scape-goat.” 

Lightly as the girl spoke, she felt reproved by 
Alice’s grave face, but not to show the feeling 
she turned directly to Angelina with a gayer 
tone than ever, — 

“ Pardon me for setting such an inexcusably 


148 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

bad example before your young and tender 
mind by -referring to her most august ladyship, 
Mademoiselle Hayden, under the exceedingly 
coarse and inappropriate title of ‘ Griffin.’ To 
make amends for the injury I have done by this 
improper conduct, let me, as a friend, inform 
you that you must be as much on your good 
behavior before Alice Irving as before Mademoi- 
selle herself.” 

“ Do hush your nonsense, Georgiana Burton ! 
Nobody wants to stay here listening to such 
stuff ! come down into the parlor, girls ; it is our 
last evening ! ” exclaimed Adelaide Davenport, 
putting her arm about Kate Allen with school- 
girl familiarity, and leading the way. 

The others speedily followed ; last of all, 
Georgiana, accompanied by Angelina, who had 
been attracted by her lively manner, and was 
very willing to hear more. 

“ Whom do you call the old griffin ? ” asked 
she. 

“ Alas ! alas ! what have I done ! There are 


At Mrs, Winthrop* 8 Boarding-school. 149 

my idle words already returning on me ! ” 
exclaimed Georgiana, with a look of pretended 
dismay. 

“ But -now really, don’t act so, tell me whom 
you meant,” urged Angelina, who could not 
.forbear laughing. 

' “ Don’t ask, I entreat you ! you will know 

only too soon. I envy your happy ignorance,” 
replied Georgiana, who would never talk sense 
when she could talk nonsense. 

By this time they were in the parlor where 
the girls had already grouped themselves for a 
game. 

“ As true as I live it is button ! ” said Ange- 
lina, after watching them a moment. “I 
thought that was children’s play ! ” 

“We are glad^ to get a chance to play any- 
thing at this nunnery,” replied Georgiana, going 
forward to take a place in the midst of the 
circle. 

But Angelina stood aloof, and when the girls 
urged her to join, she added a frown to her lo6k 


150 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

of disgust, wliich made so forbidding a counte- 
nance that everybody was glad to see her leave 
the room, excepting Alice, who felt some respon- 
sibility for her happiness. So she presently 
followed her to the attic, and found her sitting 
in the rocking-chair, in a very forlorn attitude 
with her eyes red from crying. 

“ You’d better stay with us in the parlor ; you 
will be more likely to get homesick here alone,” 
said Alice, kindly. 

But Angelina only sulked the more. 

“ I thought I saw some traces of a congenial 
spirit in you, one that is above such trivial 
foolishness as playing children’s plays,” she said, 
in a much-abused tone. 

“They are not improving to the intellect, 
certainly, but one feels better to get stirred up 
occasionally, even if there isn’t much sense in the 
game, and I think we are happier to enter 
heartily into the enjoyment of those we are with 
when there is no harm in it,” replied Alice, who 
felt that Angelina needed a moral lesson on the 


At Mrs, Winthrop' s Boarding-school, 151 

duty of making herself agreeable. The lesson 
did not take effect, however. Angelina went on 
in a dismal way to say, — 

“ Certainly you have a right to play whatever 
games you like, but I think it is very hard that 
I must be tormented and teased about it when I 
prefer solitude and my own sad thoughts.” 

Kate had come in whUe they were talking, 
and she replied to Angelina, — 

“ Then you have changed your mind since 
afternoon, when you were so neglected in the 
parlor,” she said. 

Angelina gave no direct answer to this, but 
went on to bewail the sad fate which had taken 
the only true friend she had in the world, and 
placed him upon the cruel sea, whose treacherous 
waves might even then be preparing to swallow 
him forever from her sight. 

“ Guess not ; it is quite a still night,” re- 
marked Kate. 

Angelina pretended not to hear, and Alice, 
willing to divert her from this sentimental 
strain of melancholy, said, — . 


152 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I will tell you, girls, about Miss Hayden, if 
you would like to know. But I forewarn you 
that you must not pay any attention to what 
Georgiana Burton says. She makes fun of every 
body and everything. She has such a rattling 
way of talking, you can’t rely on her; she will 
sacrifice almost anything to a joke. 

“ Mrs. Winthrop is sole governess in the sem- 
inary, and head governess of the whole estab- 
lishment ; but Miss Hayden overlooks the board- 
ing-house scholars, and we always go to her for 
permissions and excuses out of school hours. 
She is quite strict, has need to be, with so many 
wild girls; but those who are disposed to do 
right like her well enough, and never have any 
trouble.” 

Angelina was, in spite of herself, somewhat 
diverted from her meditations, and as Alice kept 
on talking about the school, and about the books 
which both had read, they passed the remainder 
of the evening quite comfortably. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Our doubts are traitors, 

And make us lose the good we oft might win 
By fearing to attempt. 

Shakspeaee. 

OING to sleep that night was not easy, 
there was so much running and calling 
in the rooms below. The girls were 
trying to make the most of their unusual 
liberty, and in their eagerness to use it to the 
full extent, were putting themselves to all man- 
ner of discomforts by crowding together three 
or four in one bed, and bursting out with some 
ridiculous trick or silly speech just as quiet was 
settling over the house. 



( 153 ) 


154 Agyies and Her Neighbors, 

“ Blessed be order and regulation ! ” exclaimed 
Alice, as the sound of laughter broke out after 
so long a quiet that she was nearly asleep. 

‘‘ Oh dear ! I long for Miss Hayden more than 
words can tell,” responded Kate, turning weari- 
ly on her bed. 

Then there came a longer hush, and almost 
immediately, as it seemed to them, they were 
startled from sound sleep by a bell, . and behold 
it was morning ! 

“ I never knew so short a night ! ” said Kate, 
rubbing her sleepy eyes. 

“You will know shorter after this morning. 
We rise an hour earlier when school is open,” 
replied Alice. “ Make haste now, or the .tardy 
bell will ring ; that sounds five minutes after the’ 
first bell, and you must report yourself tardy if 
not out of bed by that.” 

Kate started up at this intelligence and so did 
Angelina, though the latter affirmed she would 
not think of rising for an hour if she were at 
home. She often was not up until after break- 


At Mrs, Winthrop’ s Boarding-school, 155 

fast, composing some of her most beautiful ver- 
ses in bed. 

The morning passed quickly. Shortly before 
nine o’clock, a l^rge bell in the lower hall sum- 
moned the girls to repair to the seminary, which 
was connected with the boarding-house by a 
covered passage. The large school-room was 
already lively with groups of day scholars who 
were choosing their seats, and renewing old ac- 
quaintances. Laura and Juha Everett, Alice 
Irving’s twin cousins, were among them and came 
eagerly forward to welcome her. 

“ Oh, Alice! We are going to take you home 
with us. Aunt Melancia is there with Jose- 
phine; they will leave to-morrow, so you must 
come to-day I ” exclaimed Laura, while Julia ran 
to get the desired permission of Mrs. Winthrop. 
She was soon back. “ You are**going after the 
morning session, Mrs. Winthrop says ‘ yes,’ ” said 
she, nodding her head joyfully. 

Just then the seminary-bell rang, and the 
school was called to order. Alice had a seat 


156 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

with the graduating class, and Kate, being left to 
act by herself, had, before the morning was half 
gone, become quite. nervous, for fear she should 
break, without meaning to, some of the rules of 
the school, which were all so new to her, and 
seemed very complicated. A short lesson was 
given out for each of the various classes, to be 
learned before they were called to the several 
recitation-rooms, and Kate, amid all these nov- 
elties and perplexities, found herself quite unable 
to fix her thoughts. In vain she applied herself 
to the first page of rhetoric ; she could neither 
learn it, nor make sense of it to herself, and at 
last was almost in despair, ashamed to present 
herself with no lesson, and quite sure she could 
never recite what she so imperfectly understood. 

So, as she left the class in political grammar, 
she stopped to ask Mrs. Winthrop to excuse her 
from the recitation in rhetoric, saying that after 
having mentioned it as among her desired 
studies, she had decided to give it up, with her 
teacher’s permission. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 157 

Mrs. Winthrop saw the tears in Kate’s eyes, 
and fully understood her feelings, but she only 
said, “ We will speak of that at the proper hour 
for rhetoric ; this is the hour for geometry.” 

Kate felt worse than before, and began to wish 
herself at home washing dishes, but the geome- 
try class was entering, and she could say no more, 
but Vvcnt back to her seat in the seminary hall 
fairly forlorn at heart. When the hour came for 
the dreaded rhetoric lesson, she took her place 
with much inward dismay. 

Mrs. Winthrop, however, instead of proceeding 
with the recitation, began to talk of the import- 
ance and interests of rhetoric as a study. 

“You may, at commencing, find it somewhat 
dry, young ladies,” said she, “ but I advise you to 
persevere, for you will, I am sure, enjoy it after 
a little. What I particularly wish to warn you 
against is, becoming discouraged at first difficul- 
ties ; not only in rhetoric, but in every pursuit 
in life. We lay out our plans for ourselves as a 
traveller on a high hill works out his road ; and 


158 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

afterward, when obstacles come ' in the way, and 
we are ready to turn back, we should remember 
that the light we had at the beginning, before 
we were confused and made uncertain by present 
perplexities, is safest to follow ; just as the 
traveller remembers the direction he decided to 
be his most suitable course when he had a view 
of the whole road, and keeps it without confus- 
ing himself by the crooked and uneven ways 
that he finds.” 

By the time she had given a short analysis 
and explanation of the opening chapter in the 
book, the bell rang for changing classes and 
there had been no time for recitation. No one 
but Kate suspected why Mrs. Winthrop had 
thus occupied the time, or that there had been 
any especial reason, over and above the peculiar 
difficulties of rhetoric,, for encouragement and 
advice. 

She made no farther allusion to Kate’s request 
to leave the class, neither did Kate, who resolved 
to make a strong and continued effort to master 


At Mrs, WintTirop^s Boarding-school, 159 

the study, feeling indeed mucli more hopeful 
about it, but in a few days she came to thorough- 
ly enjoy it. 

She always remembered gratefully Mrs. Win- 
throp’s kind and graceful way of declining to 
release her from the class. She remembered, 
also, to apply the counsel she gave to other things 
all along in life, as well as to lessons and during 
school-days. 




CHAPTER VII. 

‘‘Words are things of little cost, 

Quickly spoken, quickly lost ; ’ ^ 

Wo forget them, but they stand 
Witnesses at G-od’s right hand, 

And their testimony bear 
For us or against us there.” 

T was with a sinking heart that Kate saw 
Alice go away with her cousins, hut she 
tried so successfully to keep the feeling 
to herself, that nohodj^ suspected it hut 
Mrs. Winthrop, who, chancing to stand near, 
caught a glimpse of her sober face as she watched 
the girls down the steps. 

She passed the afternoon, when there were 
study hours hut no school, very comfortably, 
busy with her lessons, and immediately after tea 
Arabella Meachem came. (160) 



At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 161 

A slender girl with soft, dark curls, and com- 
plexion like a pink and white shell, she was 
pleasant to look at, as she came airily into the 
room, and spoke easily and with a sort of careless 
grace to her new companions. 

Study hours had not commenced, so she was 
followed by a bevy of noisy girls, the chief 
among whom was Georgiana Burton. 

. “ Oh, Arrie ! ’’ said she. “ It is too bad you 
weren’t here last night, we had a splendid time I 
The Lady Abbess wasn’t here, and Madame 
Katwofaces graciously allowed us infants to take 
care of ourselves for once. It was the last 
chance, and you had better believe we improved 
it in more ways than her Highness knew.” 

Then followed a long story, half whispered, 
and broken by exclamations and laughter from 
the others, about a stolen visit to the kitchen, 
and the crackers and gingerbread they managed 
to plunder, to eat after they had gone to bed. 
Not because they were hungry, but just for the 
fun. 


11 


162 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Kate, growing disgusted with this idle, foolish 
chatter, looked from the window, and, instead of 
seeing the little brown house where Agnes 
Avery lived, with its overhanging elm and the 
stretch of mountain scenery beyond, she saw a 
formal block of houses looking too stiff and prim, 
as it seemed, to contain any real warmth of human 
sympathy and life within, while beneath and 
between was the little strip of land which Mrs. 
Winthrop’s household dignified by the name of 
garden, but which was not half so large or attrac- 
tive as her mother’s clothes-yard. Then she 
remembered it was just time for Willie to be 
filling the wood-box and her father to be bring- 
ing in the milk, and she knew her mother was 
stepping briskly about to attend to the straining 
of it, and to mix her batter for the next day’s 
baking, while Amelia was washing the potatoes 
for breakfast, singing of course, — Amelia was 
always singing — and the cat was following 
frantically after everybody, getting under their 
feet, and mewing with a good deal of authority 
for her usual nightly allowance of milk. 


At Mrs, Winthrop's Boarding-school, 163 

At the thought of this household image 
Kate felt a sudden sickness at heart, a feeling 
answering to nausea in the body. Those who 
have felt it understand this hut too well. And 
those who have not have more cause for grati- 
tude than they know. Then everything looked 
dismal and disagreeable about her, life itself 
did not seem worth possessing ; all there was 
of beauty and delight appearing to her at that 
moment to be comprised in the space of a few 
rods of earth a long hundred miles away. She 
rushed into the adjoining closet, and sitting upon 
her trunk, burst into a passionate fit of crying. 
There was a certain enjoyment in being so 
utterly wretched, and for a few minutes she gave 
way unrestrainedly to her tears and dismal feel- 
ings, while the merry voices in the next room 
seemed to give tenfold force to her misery. 

Georgiana was in the midst of describing, 
with exaggerated school-girl phrase, the perfectly 
horrid sensation of lying on cracker crumbs, and 
how she thought she certainly should have died 


164 


Aynes and Her Neighhors, 

with laughing at Bethiah Tillinghast’s thrusting 
her hand into a pan of stewed apple in the 
dark pantry, thinking it was cookies, when Mrs. 
Winthrop suddenly appeared among them. 
They were talking and laughing so eagerly that 
they did not see her enter, and she seemed to 
come like a spirit. Georgiana’s sentence was 
broken abruptly off, and the other girls, too much 
astonished to move, stood looking like convicted 
criminals. • 

“ Don’t let me interrupt you, young ladies. 
I already know of your night adventures, and 
trust you may rest more undisturbed hereafter,” 
said she, quietly. “ Where is Miss Allen ? ” 
Nobody had noticed when Kate vanished, 
and so nobody could tell, but Mrs. Winthrop 
with an unerring instinct went directly to the 
closet door and knocked. 

There was no response, and immediately 
opening it she went in. 

The light was very dim, but Kate felt there 
was enough to show her miserable looking face. 


At Mrs. Winthrop*s Boarding-school, 165 

and she thought, with an added pang of 
bitterness, that she could not be left to have even 
the poor solace of tears by herself. 

But when Mrs. Winthrop put her arms 
about her and kissed her, only saying, “ I want 
you to come to my room when the study bell 
rings. In the meantime you had better stay 
with your companions,” then leaving her at once, 
she felt a trifle comforted. At any rate, it 
would not do to cry any longer, she must get 
her face in better order, so with a great effort 
she stopped and began to bathe it in cold water. 
She had to exercise continual control to keep 
from bursting out again, but remembering Mrs. 
Winthrop’s direction, she returned to a dim 
corner of the outer room, where the girls still 
were talking as busily as ever, keeping a sharp 
lookout toward the door and stairway be- 
yond. 

“ She has been consulting the General Intelli- 
gence Office. I have always told you never to 
let Adelaide Davenport into anything you didn’t 


166 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

want to publish for the benefit of Mrs. Winthi-op 
— or Miss Hayden ; I think she is a little 
closer sticking-plaster for Miss Hayden,” Arabella 
was saying. 

“ Yes, Adelaide is a real tell-tale,” assented 
Bethiah Tillinghast. She will tell a thing that 
is right against herself as soon as not, for the 
sake of having something to run with ; she is 
so fond of knowing all that happens. ' But the 
best fun of all was to see Georgia’s face when 
madame appeared. She turned white as a sheet 
and I expected nothing but she would faint 
away ; I was just ready to run for some camphor, 
now really.” 

“ I don’t care how I looked,” returned 
Georgiana, who was certainly flushed enough 
now. “ But I tell you I think it is almost as 
mean to wear such light slippers as Madame 
Katwofaces does, as it is to listen at keyholes. 
I should like to know where is the difference ? 
It amounts to the same thing.” 

Kate was so indignant to hear the person 


At Mrs, Winthrop's Boarding-school, 167 

for whom she felt such high admiration so 
lightly spoken of, that she was considerably 
diverted from her thoughts of home, and at 
last she broke out upon the giils, saying, 
“ Do you consider such wickedness lady-like ? 
If you do, I must beg you to use them when 
out of my hearing, for they are not my taste ! ” 

‘‘ Another sticking-plaster ! Can you live 
with two of them, Annie ? 1 pity you upon my 
word,” whispered Bethiah Tillinghast. 

Georgiana spoke up boldly, — 

“ You haven’t known Mrs. Winthrop as long 
as we have, or you would see the appropriateness 
of the name. You will find her always just 
so smiling and soft to your face, but all the time 
she is finding out your secrets, and arranging 
your affairs to 'suit herself without consulting 
your pleasure at all. I can inform you that you 
have no idea what she is thinking of by the way 
she looks.” 

The sound of the study bell broke in upon 
Georgiana, and the girls reluctantly scattered 


168 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


to their rooms, leaving Kate with her respect 
still more heightened for the governess, and her 
admiration increased also. 



CHAPTER VIII. 


Her presence charms my brain’s distress, 

Her very voice is a caress, 

Her eyes are sweet eyes of a saint. 

Una Locke. 


i^ATE felt so miserably homesick that she 
much preferred to enjoy her wretchedness 
by herself, besides being ashamed to 
show her face still spotted and swollen 
from crying ; and quite unwillingly she presented 
herself at Mrs. Winthrop’s door scion after the 
study bell rung. 

Mrs. Winthrop was sitting in a low rocker ; a 
few books, and some work, with a pot of sweet- 

( 169 ) 


170 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

scented geranium on the table beside her ; the 
little parlor looking, withal, so cosy and homelike 
that Kate’s efforts at self-control were quite vain, 
and she suddenly burst into another flood of 
tears. 

Mrs. Winthrop put away her work, and draw- 
ing Kate to a seat on an ottoman by her side, 
smoothed her hair with a touch that was full of 
pity, but did not speak. 

“ I would give all the world just to see our 
cat ! ’’ said Kate, between her sobs. 

“ I know you feel so, dear child, but it will do 
you no good to cry so hard, and I would try to 
stop.” 

Kate tried, without succeeding very well. 

“ There I was right at home yesterday morn- 
ing, and how could I be so foolish as to come 
away ! ” 

“ You came because you thought, and your 
friends thought, you would be happy, and make 
much improvement here during the coming term, 
which in a few days you will begin to find to be 
so,” replied Mrs. Winthrop, in a gentle tone. 


At Mrs, WmtJirop’s Boarding-school, ITl 

“ That is one thing I am crying about, to 
think I am so foolish and unreasonable as to bo 
unhappy when I am going home in only fourteen 
weeks ; whei^ all my friends are well, and 
nothing has happened but what I wished for. If 
I had really any reason for feeling badly, I 
could bear it better. I deserve to have some 
great affliction come upon me for my ingratitude,” 
said Kate, no whit consoled. 

“ I think homesickness is sometimes a nervous 
disease, unreasoning and unreasonable, and after 
trying to divert ourselves as much as possible, 
we must just patiently bear it till it has run itself 
out. It is only wrong to allow ourselves to 
increase the feeliug by dwelling upon it,” replied 
Mrs. Winthrop. 

“ But to think that I shall always be liable to 
such a ridiculous weakness all my life ! I used 
to be homesick sometimes, when I was a little 
girl, and went to my grandmother’s, though I 
supposed I had outgrown such childishness long 
ago. Oh dear, I haven’t ! And now I am sure I 


172 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

never shall ; the thought of that is hardest to 
hear of the whole.” 

“ My dear girl, it is not your future home-sick- 
ness that you have now to bear and provide 
against. Don’t indulge in such far-reaching 
thoughts, but just try to make yourself as com- 
fortable as possible to-night. One thing you 
may be assured of, that whatever we are called 
to endure, whether weakness of body, or weak- 
ness of spirit, if we are faithful in doing all we 
can to keep a cheerful . heart, and perform our 
whole duty so far as we are able, we may 
consider the rest as allowed by our Heavenly 
Father, to fulfil some purpose of discipline, and 
help perfect some Christian grace. If nothing 
else, it may increase our patience in enduring, 
and our charity and forbearance when we see 
others affected by unreasonable feelings and 
fancies.” 

Kate could not accept the full meaning of 
Mrs. Winthrop’s words on the instant. “ I had 
rather have a fever for the pleasure of it, and 
you will always despise me ! ” she sobbed. 


At Mrs. Winthrop*8 Boarding-school. 173 

“ Oh, my dear. I know too well how you 
feel ! I almost had an attack of the disorder 
myself, this very night,” replied Mrs. Winthrop. 

Kate quieted herself, and looked up in won- 
der, and Mrs. Winthrop continued, — 

“ Two nights ago at this time, a pair of little 
twining arms clung about my neck, so I could 
hardly loose them, and my darling, crying as 
though his heart would break, sobbed that he 
could not let mamma go away. When twilight 
came again, I fancied I could feel the clinging 
arms, and hear the plaintive voice, and was 
tempted to repine and murmur because I could 
not press my baby to my heart, and soothe his 
cries. But I know that my Harry is really bet- 
ter in the country, with his grandmother, and so 
I have tried not to think of him.” 

Kate was considerably calmed while listening, 
to the mother’s tender story, and as Mrs. Win- 
throp farther diverted her by talking still more 
of her boy, and also of Kate’s friends and home, 
she was in time able to read aloud in an enter- 
taining book, while Mrs. Winthrop sewed. 


174 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


When the retiring bell rang, she went to her 
room much comforted, and though she cried a 
little every time she waked during the night, 
yet the first bitterness was over, and when a 
week had gone by, she could hardly imagine 
how she ever felt any tendency toward home- 
sickness. 




CHAPTER IX. 

With us reason on earth to go out of his way, 

He turned and he varied full ten times a day. 

Goldsmith. 

XGELINA was right in saying she should 
have neuralgia and toothache. She did. 
Not, however from the uncarpeted floor, 
but from going out in thin cloth boots 
after a shower, and then sitting with wet feet. 
So at least her room-mates thought, although she 
pretended to perceive no natural cause for the 
attack; — nothing but that perverse fate which 
ever delighted in her misfortune. 

“ I shall certainly die ! ” groaned she for the 
fiftieth time. (175) 



176 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ Well, that was what you were wishing to do 
yesterday,” exclaimed Kate, whose patience had 
been entirely exhausted at forty-nine. 

“ I never desired to die of this dreadful neu- 
ralgia, I am sure ! I prefer to die in consumption 
and fade away like a closing flower. I think 
that would be beautiful. I could write such 
lovely poetry about it, and everybody would be 
sending in jellies, and nice things, and looking 
sad and pitiful ; while for the toothache nobody 
cares or tries to do the least thing I ” replied 
Angelina. 

But this was wrong, for Alice and Kate had 
both been doing everything possible in the way 
of hot applications and soothing lotions. 

The pain was somewhat relieved, but it was 
still troublesome at bedtime, and the girls after 
helping Angelina undress and arrange herself as 
comfortably as possible in bed, asked if she could 
think of anything more she would like done for 
her. 

“ Ko, and if I could^ I should say I could not,” 
was the disagreeable reply. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 177 

“ Don’t act so, but tell us if you want any- 
thing more,” pleaded Alice. 

“ I don’t, but if I did, I should pretend I 
didn’t,” re-affirmed Angelina, who seemed to feel 
a morbid delight in making somebody uncomfort- 
able. 

Though Alice suggested several things, she 
would only persist in this ambiguous reply, till 
Kate, grown exasperated, pulled Alice to their 
own side of the room, and very soon silence and 
darkness had settled over all the house. 

Silence and darkness, which was after a few 
hours succeeded by the early light of a May 
morning, by the street cries, and the stir and 
tumult of a great city, as well as of a houseful 
of girls waking to the new life and new duties 
of another day. 

“ Arrie ! Arrie Meachem ! The rising bell 
has rung, and the tardy bell will strike directly. 
You will be late ! ” called Kate. 

“ Oh, dear me ! ” sighed Arabella, rubbing 
her eyes and starting up, “ I was having such a 
12 


178 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

splendid dream, you were too bad to spoil 
it ! ” 

The tardy bell rung out clear and imperative 
as she spoke, and throwing herself into bed again, 
murmuring in a drowsy tone, “ I was up before 
the tardy bell rang and I shall report myself so,” 
was asleep again in an instant. 

Angelina, as an -invalid, considered herself 
excused from rising at the usual time, and during 
the hour allowed for dressing and putting the 
room in order, she and Arabella slept soundly, 
only arousing themselves at the next bell which 
marked the time for private devotions. 

The devotion hour was divided in two, and 
while one of the occupants of each room was 
required to spend the first half of it in the hall 
studying silently, the other was expected to use 
the time in reading the Bible, in prayer, and in 
serious meditation. As there were four room- 
mates in the attic, one appropriated the adjoin- 
ing closet. 

So now Kate and Alice left the room with 


At Mrs, Winthrop's Boarding-school, 179 

their books to the sleepy girls who were begin- 
ning to dress themselves in nervous haste. 
Devotions were quite out of the question with 
them, for they had plenty to do to make them- 
selves in readiness for leaving the rooms at the 
end of the half hour, when Alice and Kate 
would be entitled to them. 

But the loss of the privilege of that undis- 
turbed time for prayer and quiet thought with 
them, as with many other girls in the school, this 
sacred hour was spent in giving the finishing 
touches to their toilets or in .any employment 
they happened to fancy. 

When the half-hour bell rang for the girls to 
change places with each other, Arabella held up 
her partly brushed curls with a gesture of 
entreaty, at this hour speaking was forbidden, 
and Kate in compliance with the mute request, 
went back to her place on the stairway. 

Now, as it happened. Miss Hayden, who, 
Bethiah Tillinghast said, was always trying to 
demonstrate the possibility of being in two places 


180 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

at the same time, and was far too successful, had 
passed by, and noticed Kate during the previous 
half-hour on the stairs. And passing again, 
saw her still sitting there. 

“ Why are you not in your room. Miss Allen, 
during this or the past devotion hour ? ’’ asked 
she, with a whole chapter of reproof in her tone. 

“ Miss Meachem is not quite ready,” an- 
swered Kate, with composure. 

“ But why is she not ? Was she not up at the 
proper time ? ” asked Miss Hayden, severely. 

“We are required to report each for ourself 
only, I think,” answered Kate, very respectfully. 

Miss Hayden colored, frowned, and passed on 
in the direction of Mrs. Winthrop’s room. 

Her manner, which was in a measure her mis- 
fortune, was offensive to every girl in school, 
and they were all ready to evade and thwart her 
questioning. 

Kate half expected a mandate to appear 
before the high tribunal of the governess during 
the rest of the morning, but the hours wore 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 181 

away, and as she heard no word of reproof or 
enquiry, the remembrance of this encounter 
gradually wore away also. 




CHAPTER X. 


Our wisdom is to seek 
Our strength in God alone, 

For e’en an angel would be weak 
Who trusted in his own. 

COWPER. 

HE next day being Friday, each young 
lady was expected to repair to the semi- 
nary hall before evening study hours 
and give a report of her conduct for the 
past week. 

“ The young ladies may rise,” said Mrs. Win- 
throp, after they had come to order, each in her 
seat. 

“Those who have disregarded one or more 
( 182 ) 



At Mrs, Wintlirop^s Boarding-school, 183 

regulations of the school during the week, may 
be seated.” 

More than half the number remained standing, 
but instead of being dismissed at once as usual, 
they were requested to sit again. 

“ The remaining young ladies may rise. 
Those who have disobeyed more than one regu- 
lation may be seated,” said Mrs. Winthrop. 

Then of the number who remained standing, 
she asked each in turn for her own reports, 
marking her accordingly, and saying a few words 
of counsel or reproof; at the close, directing 
each to sit again, — contrary to custom. By this 
it seemed she had something to say to the assem- 
bled scholars, and every girl who had not a per- 
fectly clear conscience, or a hardened one, felt 
an uneasy twinge of it as she thought over the 
little remissnesses of which she had been guilty. 

The seminary was situated at the end of a 
quiet, retired avenue, but only a few minutes 
walk away was all the life and whirl of Wash- 
ington street ; and the girls were strictly forbid- 


184 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

den, in the phrase of the rule, ‘ to go down 
Washington Street,’ during their hours of daily 
out-of-doors exercise, without particular per- 
mission. 

After the marking was finished, Mrs. Wim 
throp said with quiet dignity, “ Those young 
ladies who think walking over Beacon Hill to 
Cornhill, and from there up Washington Street, 
not forbidden by the regulations of the school, 
may rise.” 

Nobody rose, but several of the girls looked 
suspiciously unconscious. 

“ Those young ladies who think rising before 
the tardy bell, and going to bed again after it 
rings, to be consistent with reporting themselves 
as not tardy, may rise.” 

Still the school remained seated, but Arabella 
Meachem cast a quick, accusing look at Kate 
and Alice. They in return looked astonished 
and innocent, and yet, though she did not know 
it, Kate herself had inadvertently turned in- 
former by some casual remark which had sug- 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 185 

gested tlie idea to Mrs. Winthrop of frauds like 
these, and put her to investigate them. 

Herein Mrs. Winthrop was decidedly unlike 
Miss Hayden. She extracted whatever informa- 
tion she wished for so quietly that the informer 
was very likely entirely unconscious of it, while 
Miss Hayden set so violently and determinedly 
about it, that the witness took alarm at the very 
beginning and made herself as hard a nut to 
crack as possible. 

“ I hate to have the truth dug out of me so 
fiercely. Miss Hayden’s way always makes me 
think of Baby Torrey’s method of waking her 
grandmother by picking open her eyes with two 
chips. She sets me against telling her anything 
that I had just as lief she knew as not,” said 
Kate one day, to Alice. 

But quite another person than Miss Hayden 
was on the judge’s bench to-day. 

“ My dear young ladies,” said Mrs. Winthrop, 
sadly, “ the disrespect and insult you cast upon 
your school and teachers by such undignified 


186 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

and childish deceptions, I feel to be very slight 
compared with the injury you do yourselves, 
Every evasion of the strict truth, however 
trifling, leaves its impression on the character, 
and weakens the moral tone imperceptibly, but 
surely, till gradually one is drawn into commit- 
ting great sins which at first would have seemed 
too heinous to be dangerous. You cannot de- 
part in the slightest degree from the truth with- 
out doing yourselves a wrong. The blot you 
leave upon that, makes an answering blot on 
your heart. 

“ There are many petty deceptions which may 
hardly seem worth a thought if every act of our 
lives were not a link which keeps the whole to- 
gether; and more than that, which throws in 
some degree its influence into each coming link. 

For example, it may harm no one for a per- 
son to pass into a lecture room on a false ticket, 
to use again a car ticket which has been over- 
looked by the conductor, or a letter-stamp which 
has accidently escaped being properly defaced. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 187 

No one but the person herself. She has thereby- 
deadened a little her perceptions of right and 
done herself a perpetual wrong. 

“ The smallest mote injures the fine sight of 
the eye, and the mechanism of the moral powers 
are still more delicate and capable of injury by 
slight and almost imperceptible agents ; and as 
the soul is of infinitely more account than the 
whole body, so we ought to guard it still more 
carefully from even the appearance of evil. 

“ Among the many temptations to wrong which 
are permitted to come in our way, our Heavenly 
Father has given.us many helps to resistance, and 
one of the greatest of these is prayer. 

“ Now in a large household like this, it is not 
easy to secure quiet and solitude excepting at the 
hour provided for it in the arranging of your 
time ; and she who throws away this opportunity 
does herself a grievous wrong. 

“ I do not mean that praying alone is sufficient 
to keep us always right. We need to make a 
continual struggle and exert ourselves earnestly, 


188 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

even as though the power was in us, yet remem- 
bering when we pray that it is all in God.” 

These words of Mrs. Winthrop came to some 
thoughtful minds with a force which they always 
remembered and acted upon. On others, they 
left a transient impression which soon passed 
away like ripples from a lake ; while others, 
already hardened as well as giddy and thought- 
less, congratulated themselves on “ getting off so 
easy, with nothing but a sermon.” 

Alas ! To all to whom this message was only 
as a very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant 
voice and can play well on an instrument ; who 
hearing the words obeyed them not, they were 
another witness to rise up at the great day say- 
ing, “ye knew your duty and ye did it not, there- 
fore to you is the greater condemnation.” 



CHAPTER XL 

“ Some fell on stony places, where they had not much 
earth ; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had 
no deepness of earth ; and when the sun was up, they 
were scorched ; and because they had no root they 
withered away.” 

HE same evening Mrs. Winthrop sent for 
several of the girls one by one to her 
room, and among them Arabella 
Meachem. 

When she returned, her face was flushed and 
wet with tears, and though it was study hours, she 
began to talk earnestly. 

“ Mrs. Winthrop said I might speak to you, 
and oh, girls ! you can’t tell how beautifully she 

( 189 ) 



190 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

has been talking to me, and now I am determined 
to become a Christian. X shall begin to-morrow.’’ 

“ Why not to-night^ without waiting for to- 
morrow ? It will be no easier then, and you do 
not even know you will be alive,” said Alice. 

Arabella shuddered. “ Oh Alice, don’t speak 
so. Of course I shall live till morning. I am 
perfectly well now, and that will be a better time ; 
during the devotion hour you know I can think 
about it all the while, and I am going to sleep 
very soon, so it really doesn’t signify what I do 
to-night. I expect Battle Tdlinghast and Geor- 
gia Burton will laugh at me and try to discour- 
age me, but I shall do all I can to persuade them 
to become Christians, too. I shall observe all the 
rules of school after this. You will see I shall. 
I have always before thought it was very stiff and 
pokey to obey rules and never did when I could 
help it, but it won’t be so any more. And I 
shall never spend my Sabbaths writing letters 
and reading novels after this. I mean to set a 
perfect example before the girls here and my lit- 
tle sisters at home, I do indeed.” 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 191 

Alice kept thinking, while Arabella talked- so 
confidently, ‘ Let him that thinketh he standeth 
take heed lest he fall ; ’ hut she did not wish to 
discourage the excited, impressible girl, so she did 
not repeat the text aloud, but instead, tried hear- 
tily to say whatever she could to strengthen and 
establish these good resolutions. 

“ I wish you would become a Christian, Ange- 
lina ! ’’ said Arabella, fervently. 

Her soft eyes were full of tears, which, run- 
ning over her cheeks, made her more lovely than 
ever, and Angelina was touched by the earnest, 
pleading tone which her beautiful face seemed to 
make more effective. 

“ I shouldn’t wonder if I were one already. 
Numbers of ladies have told my mother they 
thought nobody could express such piety in 
poetry without being pious at heart, and mother 
says perhaps I am pious. I dare say I shall be 
confirmed the next time the Bishop comes. Our 
family are Episcopalians, and I am sure father 
would rather I wasn’t pious than to join a meet- 


192 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

ing^ he thinks so much of the church. We attend 
the church of St. Mary, and it is a splendid build- 
ing, with magnificent windows of stained glass, 
and velvet cushions, and hassocks. Then our 
rector is perfectly delightful. He is very young, 
quite boyish in his face, with the sweetest smile, 
and the most elegant hands I ever saw on a 
gentleman. I often think I should like to be 
confirmed for the sake of taking the sacrament 
from his hands.” 

“ Why, Angelina Templeton ! It is really 
wicked to talk so. 1 am sure Mrs. Winthrop did 
not think of such an abuse of the privilege when 
she gave Arrie permission to speak to us ! ” ex- 
claimed Kate, vehemently. 

“Now what have I said ? I am sure I have 
talked on nothing but church and clergy, and I 
do not know a more pious subject,” returned 
Angelina, immediately pretending to consider 
herself the victim of religious persecution. As 
usual, she took refuge in her pen, composing one 
poem expressive to her feelings at beholding the 


At Mrs» Winthrop^s Boarding-school. 193 

futile attempts of dissenters in striving to pull 
down the true Church ; and another, describing 
the beauty and grace of repentance as shown in 

the person of a pretty girl. 

% 

Kate and Alice talked and read the Bible 
with Arabella until the retiring-bell rang, and 
though they were conscious that the soil was 
very light where the good seed had fallen, yet 
they trusted that by the blessing of the Holy 
Spirit which giveth plenteously, there might be 
a harvest even there. 

Alas ! Alas ! As the early cloud and morn- 
ing dew, Arabella’s desires after holiness passed 
away. For a day or two she was a little sub- 
dued and less giddy, but gradually, and soon aU 
serious impressions passed off, and ‘ because they 
had not root,’ the seeds which sprung so quickly 
up, withered away, having borne no fruit. 

13 



CHAPTER XIL 

Be docile to thine unseen Guide, 

Love Him as He loveth thee ; 

Time and obedience are enough 
■ And thou a saint shall be 1 

Faber. 

WISH you wouldn’t speak so liglitly of 
our devotion-hours and -all such senous 
things, Georgia. You have so much in- 
fluence over Arabella and some of the 
other girls that you ought to be careful for their 
sakes if not for your own,” said Alice Irving, 
one day, as she chanced to fall in with Georgiana 
Burton during a walk. 

Georgiana was not so entirely unconcerned 
( 194 ) 



At Mrs, WintJiroph Boarding-school. 195 

and reckless as she pretended, and she was some- 
what moved by this direct appeal. 

“ Well, to please you, I will try to be more 
particular before them ; but really, for my part, 
I don’t see much good in all this praying, though 
Mrs. Winthrop makes a great virtue of it. 
Don’t you suppose the Lord knows just as well 
what we want without our telling him ? ” said 
she. 

“ Of course He does ; yet I think there are 
several reasons why we should tell Him. He 
has told us to do so, and He would never have 
done this if there was no use in it,” replied 
Alice. 

“ But really, now, did you ever feel any good 
from it yourself ? Did ever anything happen in 
consequence of your praying that would not 
• have happened just the same, anyway?” per- 
sisted Georgiana. 

“ Yes, many times. I do not suppose our 
prayers are to be answered miraculously, like a 
sudden flash of lightning. I think the answer 


196 Agiies and Her Neighbors. 

comes often id an influence on us, something in 
the silent, gradual way of the sun and rain upon 
the grass. What we pray for sincerely we are 
likely to labor earnestly for also, and that alone 
helps bring it to pass, ’’ Alice answered. 

“ That is just my idea. You want something 
enough to pray heartily for it ; the same desire 
makes you work heartily also, and I am inclined 
to think it is the working more than the praying 
that gets it for you after all,” returned Georgiana. 

“ It must positively be our duty to pray, be- 
cause God has commanded us to do so, and we 
have no right to neglect it even if we don’t see 
any use in it. But He never gave us a useless 
command, and besides, I certainly know of my 
own experience, Georgia, that there is a power 
in it. We may not be sure^ perhaps, that a sick 
friend would not have recovered just the same 
without it, but it is impossible to be mistaken 
sometimes in knowing that strength of heart for 
some hard duty, and cheerfulness, and patience, 
when things don’t go to please us, comes directly 
in answer to our prayer.” 


At Mrs, Winthro'p^s Boarding-school, 197 

“ I expect you pray yourself into a good sub- 
missive frame ; that is bow it comes,” said Geor- 
giana. 

“ Well, God always works by something. He 
doesn’t put out His band directly as He used to 
do in tbe age of miracles and I have no 
doubt He often answers bur prayers through 
ourselves. I wish, Georgia, you would try for 
yourself what power there may be in prayer.” 

Alice spoke earnestly, feeling that her school- 
mate’s case was far less hopeless since she 
thought enough to argue and cavil ; that state • 
was more promising than Angelina’s self-con- 
scious, poetic fervors, and Arabella’s impressible 
and transient nature. But she was not prepared 
for the sudden solemnity which came over Geor- 
giana’s face, and the anxious tone as she said. 

“ Oh, Alice ! I wish indeed I felt as you do ! 
If I only knew how, I would become a Christian 
this very hour ! ” 

Tears of joy filled Alice’s eyes. 

« Coming to Christ is very easy, Georgia. That 


198 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


is why so many miss the way, because they look 
for something more difficult. Only determine 
that, so far as you are able, you will always do as 
you think will best please Him in everything, 
and ask Him humbly and truly to help you. 
That is all. Perhaps you may not feel any sud- 
den light and joy as many do. I did not ; but 
the full joy of believing came at last, though 
gradually.” 

Georgiana was silent for the rest of the walk 
but as they came up the steps of the boarding 
house, kissing Alice, she said, “ I will try. 
Pray for me.” 

And there was joy in Heaven over one sinner 
that repented. 

“ If I had not been brought to feel the help 
and support of prayer at the time of my great 
trial about staying away from the seminary, I 
could not have said these things to Georgia. So 
I have seen a blessing come even from that,” 
said Alice afterward to Agnes Avery. 






CHAPTER XIII. 

' If on our daily course our mind 
Be set to hallow all we find, 

Kew treasures still of countless price, 

God will provide the sacrifice. _ ■ 

The trivial round, the common task, 

Will furnish all we ought to ask ; 

Boom to deny ourselves ; a road 
To bring us, daily, nearer God. 

Keble. 

“ Glekcoe, May lOth. 
My very dear Alice and Kate. 

Don’t you think I was a happy girl when 
Father came from the office, Saturday, with a' 
letter from Boston from j^our own dear selves ? 

I knoAV you don’t doubt it at all, and I wanted to 
sit right down tliat very night and reply to yours, 
and send it out Monday, and did get so far as to 

• - (1993 


200 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

go into the bedroom and bring out my little 
writing-desk, and get all ready, but before my 
work was finished — you must know I was mak- 
ing ‘ head-cheese:^ — it was so late, and I was so 
tired that not a word could I write. Yesterday 
and to-day, I have been unable to do much — 
troubled with my old “ spine in the back,’’ as 
Mrs. Hathaway calls it ; but this evening I feel 
better. 

Father is sitting in his arm-chair, with his 
frock and hat on, reading the paper ; and Mrs. 
Hathaway is in her customary corner, making 
bows backward with her eyes shut, and her 
mouth open ; supposing herself to be listening to 
the reading. 

Tabby is asleep, lying on Mrs. Hathaway’s 
cape which is, as usual, on the floor ; but you 
'know very well the cat wouldn’t be there an 
instant if . the good woman’s eyes were in the 
condition of her mouth. Your bird, Alice, is 
asleep on his perch, with his head tucked under 
his wing, looking like a golden ball. It was 


At Mrs* Winthrop's Boarding-school. 201 

very good of you to lend him to me ; he is so 
much company, and I don’t know what I should 
do without him now you are gone. Something 
I suppose, we generally do. 

My friends are very kind, and try the best 
they can to keep me from being lonesome, though 
they don’t take your places by any means. Even 
Mrs. Starkweather, hearing I was sick, sent me 
in a mince pie in token of friendliness, yesterday ; 
but Mrs. Hathaway won’t eat any of it, because 
she says, she is knowing to the fact that Mrs. 
Starkweather stems raisins with her teeth. 
Father laughs at her, and says there will be the 
more pie for him. 

Old Mr. Hunter walked to Ballard last week 
to collect some money due him. Going over the 
mountain, he said, when he came to the foot of 
one long hill he felt as though he had as lief lie 
down and die as try to go any farther, he was so 
tired, but he persevered in walldng over and 
back. I couldn’t help thinking, when he told of 
it, of Watts’s hymn, — 


202 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

They toil for heirs they know not who 
And straight are seen no more.” 

Jolinny Hunter was in this morning with little 
Bell. He told me triumphantly that he could 
spell cat and dog, whereupon little Bell, not to 
he outdone, affirmed she could spell two cats and 
two dogs. 

I am rejoiced you are having so much happi- 
ness, and I expect to share it all with you after 
you come home. But you are also losing some- 
thing ; the beauty of the opening spring and 
coming summer. The wonder and charm of 
beholding, anew, life coming from death, is just 
as fresh to me each ye'ar, and each year it seems 
no less a miracle. I cannot feel very lonely or 
desolate, when every bud and branch, as well as 
bird and insect, are waking up to give their 
annual witness to the Infinite Power of our 
Heavenly Father, who takes thought for the 
flowers of the field ' and the little sparrow, as 
well as the stars in their courses’ and the whole 
vast universe. So I think, when every tree and 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 203 

slirub I see from the window seems like an 
endless hymn of praise to the power and care 
of the Creator, that even in the petty, simple 
duties of housekeeping in a humble home, with- 
out any chance for stirring words or mighty 
deeds, I am doing His work, since it is what He 
has given me to do. 

I don’t think I have written you anything 
very new ; everything runs in much the same 
channel in this small corner of the world, you 
know ; but I am sure you are glad to hear just 
what I am doing and what I am thinking about. 
And though this is no great of a letter, I want 
to send it to-morrow, and hear from you again 
pretty soon. 

I think you will have a good time this term 
and make the most of it. 

Let me tell you your letter was a good one, 
and I was delighted to get it. Good-night. 

From your ever loving 

Agnes Avery. 

P. S. Johnny Hunter asked, when he came 


204 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

in, ‘ Is it Monday ? Ma is washing.’ Also said 
he didn’t believe David killed Goliah with a 
stone ; it must have been a rock. Or, if it was 
a stone, it must have been a whacking great 
one.” 




CHAPTER XIV. 


Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood, 

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. 

Pope. 

|( T is strange you have never heard that 
music, girls. Adelaide Davenport says 
some of the members of a brass band 
live near here, and she thinks it is 
probably one of them practising. I have heard 
only a few strains, but those are beautiful. I do 
really wish you could hear it.” 

Kate talked so much about this mysterious 
and charming music, that her room-mates were 

( 205 ) 


206 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

all very curious ; but somehow they seemed fated 
never to hear it. 

“ Didn’t you hear it this morning, just after 
the devotion-hour commenced ? It sounded 
nearer than usual, and very clear ; I am sure it 
is a kind of wind instrument. It has a very 
musical tone, and I only wish the performer, 
whoever he is, would play longer — through a 
tune.” 

At length there came a fortunate morning 
when Kate awoke Alice a little before the rising- 
bell rang. 

“ There is the music ! Now listen ! ” 

As she spoke, a strain which really was not 
lacking in melody, floated in through the open 
window. 

But on hearing it, Alice burst out' laughing. 

‘‘ What are you laughing at ? ” asked Kate, 
indignantly. 

‘‘That is a fish-horn!'^ replied Alice, as soon 
as she could speak. 

Thereupon Kate good-naturedly laughed, too, 
not at all disconcerted by her blunder. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 207 

But sometime during the next night, when 
she was awakened by what seemed to her 
like a whistled call from without ; and heard a 
slight movement, as she fancied, within the 
room, she remembered her recent mistake, and 
resolved she would not be caught in another so 
soon. 

So she strained her eyes and ears through the 
darkness, but without feeling sure she really 
heard anything unnatural. Just then the clock 
struck eleven, and surprised it was no later, she 
turned over and fell asleep immediately. 

She did, however, hear something more than 
the rustling of a floating curtain or a chance 
street cry, and, if there had been the faintest 
starlight, she would have seen a white figure 
steal carefully away from the window, and creep 
noiselessly into bed. 

It was Arabella, foolish child, who imagined 
there was happiness in secrecy whether she had 
anything to hide or not, and therefore having 
formed with a day scholar, one of those transient 


208 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

frivolous friendships, which endure till some feud 
or a new face comes between, was taking what 
enjoyment she could, in drawing surreptitiously, 
with a long line and hook, Maria Macomber’s 
notes through the window in the night, instead 
of receiving them openly from her hand during 
daylight. 

Maria had a cousin just old enough and wild 
enough to delight in adventures bordering on 
impropriety, and he was the ready messenger 
that took these silly missives back and forth, with 
with now and then a package of ribbons or 
candy ; and occasionally some nonsense of his 
own scribbled on the envelope. 

Of course, Arabella was compelled to wait 
until morning before examining this letter. Even 
then there was no time when she could do it 
secretly until the devotion-hour. This sacred 
time was in fact very often given to this clan- 
destine correspondence, — if she were dressed 
in season. 


“ My dearest Arrie,” said the letter, “ I have 


At Mrs, WintTirop^s Boarding-school, 209 

something perfectly splendid to propose to you. 
What do you say to going to the opera to-night, 
and to Copeland’s^ for ices afterwards ? Do you 
think you can manage it without being found 
out by the ‘ sticking-plasters ? ’ The opera to- 
night is ‘ Sicilian Vespers,’ delightful, you know, 
that is. George and a friend of his will go with 
us ; won’t it be splendid ? I hope, now, you 
have spirit enough to carry it out ! I sometimes 
wish I was a boarding-scholar it would be such 
fun to cheat ‘ Madame Katwofaces and the 
Griffin,’ as Georgia Burton used to call them 
before she got. pious. How horrid stupid she 
has grown ! You must miss her dreadfully, she 
used to be so lively and always up to anything 
for a train ; but I must confess she doesn’t get 
mad quite so easy, that is one good thing. 

“ I bought the worsted to-day for my shawl, 
rose color and white, — perfectly elegant shades. 
Shall I get some for you like it ? One really 
cant do without something of the kind for balls 
and concerts. I haven’t the slightest idea how 


210 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

I am to pay for my worsted, for I’ve already used 
my allowance for this quarter, and father is so 
particular I don’t dare write home for more, hut 
I shall manage it somehow, I dare say. 

“ How I pity you with such a prim set of 
room-mates, hut there is all the more fun in 
cheating them. Be sure and don’t disappoint us, 
for I shall die of vexation if you don’t go. Wear 
a pink how at your collar, if you will, and come 
around for me as early as you possibly can get 
away from the nunnery. 

“ I know you will think this writing perfectly 
awful, hut you must excuse it, and hum the letter 
immediately^ remember. 

Your darling Maeia.” 

Now Maria had no idea her writing looked 
badly, and she would have been highly displeased 
with anybody who said so. Indeed, it was a 
fair, graceful hand, with long waving letters on 
scented lilac paper, but that was a silly school- 
girl fashion, and must on no account be omitted. 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 211 

It was a pity she had not rather thought to 
apologize for the deception and folly she was 
encouraging. 

“ Will you do me a very great favor to-night, 
Angie Templeton ? If you will, I will love 
you always. Now do promise, that is a darling ! ” 
said Arabella, with her most winning smile. 

“ What is it ? ” asked Angelina, frowning. 

Her countenance was certainly discouraging, 
but then she always did according to her varying 
mood, and there was no dependence on that. 
So Arabella went on, — 

“You know Mrs. Winthrop has given us 
permission to go to Mr. Gough’s lecture to-night, 
and I may not be in as soon as the rest, so if I 
am not here before the doors are closed, I want 
you to come down quietly and let me in, there 
is no need of saying anything to the teachers, if 
you will. Just keep a little watch, and come 
down when you hear a whistle under the win- 
dow.” 

“ Indeed. I shall do no such thing, Arabella 


212 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Meachem, and what is more, I shall tell Mrs. 
Winthrop that you are into some scrape,” re- 
turned Angelina. 

She was very favorable to mystery and adven- 
ture when she was to be the heroine, but though 
her conscience took no offence, yet her selfishness 
did ; and she had no intention of taking any 
trouble or running any risk when she was to get 
no benefit or satisfaction. 

“ I didn’t think you would be so disobliging. 
I am sure I would do as much for you, any 
time,” said Arabella. 

“ I am sure you would never have the oppor- 
tunity. It isn’t my custom to prowl around 
nights, and I’m just going to Mrs. Winthrop 
about it this very minute,” returned Angelina, 
starting up. 

Arabella looked terrified. 

“ I know you are too good-natured for that. 
I dare say I shall be at home quite as early as the 
rest, and I only said that to try you. I didn’t 
mean a thing by it, so don’t make a gosling of 


^ At Mrs. WintTirop's Boarding-school. 213 

yourself by running to Mrs. Wintbrop till you 
have something to tell,” said she, carelessly. 

Directly she turned away humming a tune, as 
though quite done with the subject, and opening 
her trunk, she lifted up a paper of confectionery, 
and said indifferently, “ See, all that for a dollar ! 
Don’t you want some ? ” and reaching out a 
handful, effectually stopped Angelina’s mouth 
for the present with some chocolate-creams and 
cocoanut-cakes. 

“ What a quantity of trash you do put into 
your stomach, Arrie Meachem ! I wonder you 
don’t have the headache oftener than you do ! ” 
exclaimed Kate, coming in with Alice. 

Arabella shrugged her pretty shoulders. 

“ I should starve to death on nothing but the 
pig’s dinners we get down stairs, now truly ! ” 

“ I don’t think it is wise to set ourselves 
against our food by speaking contemptuously of 
it. Besides, we live very well, you hnow^^' said 
Alice. 

“ Well enough for those who are accustomed 


214 Agnes and Ser Neighhors, 

to nothing better, no doubt. It is not what I am 
used to, though,’^ remarked Angelina. 

“ Hash, veal pie and Bunker Hill pudding. 
Yah ! It makes me sick to think of them,” 
averred Arabella, stuffing a cruller into her 
mouth. “ And did you know Battie Tillinghast 
found a piece of pickle an inch long in her hash 
yesterday morning ? Just to think of the mess 
we have ‘set before us in that eating-trough 
below ! ” 

“ Now Arrie Meachem, you are really too bad 
to talk so ! we can set ourselves against any- 
body’s table. I remember finding a piece of 
dried apple in the butter once, at home ; every- 
body is liable to such accidents, and it isn’t right 
or comfortable to try what flaw we can find in 
our eating, or anything else that we have got to 
endure,” said Alice. 

“ There, I hope you won’t find anymore flaws 
with my candy. Won’t you take some?” 
returned Arabella, and thus the subject dropped. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Veil, Lord, mine eyes till she be past 
When Folly tempts the sight ; 

Keep Thou my 23alate and my taste 
From gluttonous delight. 

Stop Thou mine ear from syrens’ songs ; 

My tongue from lies restrain ; 

Withhold my hands from doing wrongs, 

My feet from courses vain. 

George Wither. 

’YE had the greatest time getting here, 
Maria, but here I am ! ” exclaimed Ara- 
bella, when her friend met her at the 
door of her aunt’s house, where she 
boarded. 

“ I thought you never were coming,” returned 
Maria, who had her bonnet and shawl already 

( 215 ) 



216 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

on, closing the door, and going down the steps. 

“We are going around by Copeland’s for 
George and his friend. I promised to meet 
them there. Auntie wouldn’t care, of course, if 
she saw us start together, but I always think it 
is just as well not to bring up the elders to ex- 
pect a particular account of every step I take, 
and George thinks as I do.” 

“ Oh dear ! ” sighed Arabella. How delight- 
ful if we could only board together somewhere 
outside the nunnery walls ! But after all, there 
is some fun, as you say, in cheating them.” 

As they left the opera, the girls came through 
the entrance of the theatre with the two young 
men, so dazzled and excited by the lights, the 
music, the gay dress, and brilliant show, that 
they did not see Adelaide Davenport who passed 
just then with her uncle, on the way back from 
the lecture. If they had, they would have been 
quite aware that Mrs. Winthrop would hear 
where Adelaide had seen them ; and the shock 
would probably have aroused them to a sense' of 


At Mrs, Wmthrop's Boarding-school, 217 

the hour, and the expediency of going directly 
home. As it was, they accepted the invitation 
of George Macomber and his friend, to call at 
Copeland’s for a few minutes, with no thought 
of anything but present pleasure. 

The few minutes lengthened into an hour, 
while they ate ices and confectionery, idly talk- 
ing and laughing. 

When the clock struck ten, Arabella started. 

“ What shall I do ! The door is always closed 
at half past nine ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ Come home with me, of course. You can 
get up early, and go in before you are missed,” 
suggested Maria. 

Arabella’s heart misgave her, for she knew 
she had been already missed by her room-mates 
at least ; but saying to herself it was too late for 
the matter to be helped, and she might as well 
enjoy herself, she became more reckless than 
ever. 

The silly young people made a long evening at 
the restaurant, and afterward in a street prome- 


218 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

nade ; so it was very late when 'the girls went to 
bed, and later when they stopped their idle chatr 
ter, and went to sleep. 

But late as it was, Arabella awoke with the 
earliest sound of life in the street, and although 
her head ached, and she felt weary in mind and 
body, and wholly unfit for lessons and school, 
yet she started up and dressed with languid, 
nerveless fingers. 

The freshness of the morning air brightened 
her up a little, but she felt too listless in body 
and too uneasy in spirit to enjoy the unwonted 
• early walk, along the streets not yet crowded by 
the busy, jostling mass of humanity which was 
only beginning to be astir. 

“ Boifi lob ! Boir lob I ” called out the venders 
of lobsters, trundling their wheel-barrows up and 
down the sidewalk. 

“ Hot bread ! Here’s your hot bread ! ” 
screamed the bakers’ boys. 

“Morning Herald, Journal and Transc’ip’, 
only two cents ! ” shouted the ragged newsboys. 


At Mrs, Winthrofs Boarding-school, 219 

The shopmen were taking down their shutters 
and arranging their show windows ; the water- 
carts were just starting out to freshen up the 
dusty streets ; the smells of cookery were coming 
up from basement windows, telling of the num- 
berless breakfasts in course of preparation, and 
over everything was the awakening hum and 
stir of a new day. 

But Arabella’s sense of wrong-doing was too 
heavy to leave her thought for anything else. 
She slunk guiltily through the back gate and 
door of the seminary yard and up the stairs as 
quietly as possible. Just as she put her foot on 
the first step of the last fiight and was congratu- 
lating herself on her success, she was startled by 
the appearance of Mrs. Winthrop, coming down 
from the attic. 

“ Good-morning, Miss Meachem. When you 
have made yourself ready for breakfast, come to 
me,” she said. 

Arabella’s head ached ten times harder than 
before, as she slowly passed up to her bedroom. 


220 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

The bell was sonnclmg for the first devotion-hour 
and her room-mates, without speaking, left her 
alone in the room. She mechanically took off 
her bonnet and smoothed her curls, then throwing 
herself on the bed, cried bitterly till the next 
bell roused her. 

As the girls came in, they looked at her pity- 
ingly, and she, fancying they knew she was to be 
expelled, went to Mrs. Winthrop’s room with a 
sorrowful heart. Not because of her fault, but 
in fear of coming disgrace. 

“You were not at home, last night, Miss 
Meachem,” said Mrs. Winthrop, kindly. 

Arabella had dried her eyes and hardened her 
heart, resolving to keep back as much as possible, 
so she said quickly, “ I was not. Maria Macom- 
ber urged me so hard to go home with her from 
the lecture, that I went. I know it was wrong, 
and I hope you will excuse me, for I promise it 
shall not happen again.” 

“ From the lecture at Tremont Temple, do you 
mean ? ” asked Mrs. Winthrop. 


At Mrs, Winthrop'^s Boarding-school. 221 

“ Yes, ma’am, from Gough’s lecture. You 
gave us permission to go.” 

Mrs. Winthrop’s tone was severer, as she said, 
“ Did you construe a permission to attend Mr. 
Gough’s lecture into one to attend the theatre 
with a young man ? ” 

Arabella blushed violently, but still trying to 
confess nothing, entangled herself deeper m false- 
hoods, fruitlessly attempting to deceive ; until 
she found it was quite vain. Then she burst 
into a passion of tears, confessing everything. 

Poor child ! She had no fixed principle, and 
her actions were swayed about by her feelings, 
like a willow by the wind. 

“ It gives me much pain to feel that I cannot 
trust you again alone,” said Mrs. Winthrop, sad- 
ly, “ but for the present I must forbid your walk- 
ing outside the yard except with Miss Irving, 
Miss Allen, or one of the teachers. I might 
excuse one disobedience, but cannot overlook 
premeditated deception.” 

Hard as her sentence seemed, Arabella could 


222 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

but acknowledge it just, in the softened mood of 
her first contrition. But gradually the acuteness 
of her penitence wore away, especially after get- 
ting the sympathy of Maria Macomber and 
Bethiah Tillinghast. 

It was a real shame and regular scandal to pen 
up a girl in that way, just for nothing at all ! 

“Your health will certainly suffer, and I 
wouldn’t bear it. I would leave school first,” 
said Maria. 

“ She is losing her color and her spirits every 
day. Only think of always being attended by 
Saint Irving and Saint Allen ! That is enough 
to give anybody the worst kind of blues ! ” 
added Bethiah. 

So Arabella was quite a martyr, and suffering 
for no adequate cause, but just to gratify the 
despotism of an oppressor, and this feeling added 
to her unhappiness, without working her any 
good. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The triumphs that on vice attend 
Shall ever in confusion end. 

Goldsmith. 

R ABELL A MEACHEM was so wholly 
governed by impulse, that when mostly 
in the society of Alice Irving and Kate 
Allen, she was readily influenced into 
tolerable obedience to the laws of school and 
rules of propriety ; but a few words from her 
favorite associates, Maria Macomber and Bethiah 
Tillinghast, were always quite enough to unsettle 
her unstable and weak goodness ; and when they 
had no opportunity to speak, they cast upon her' 

( 223 ) 



224 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

expressive looks of pity that were nearly as 
effectual. 

Besides, Maria found means daily to convey to 
her notes of commiseration and silly gossip ; — 
the fish hook and line was not used for awhile 
^ when the fright of exposure was first freshly 
upon them. 

■ Mrs. Winthrop, discovering Arabella’s inor- 
dinate and unhealthy appetite for the daintier 
sorts of confectionery, forbade her room-mates to 
buy it for her, directing them to tell her if 
Arabella — contrary to her promise — asked them 
to do so. This, she and her friends, considered a 
double hardship, and through them she was kept 
supplied. She sent also by Maria for materials 
for fancy worsted work, which she used when 
she should have been studying. 

So with embroidery for the eyes, and candy 
for the stomach, it was no wonder her headaches 
became more frequent. 

“ It is a horrid shame to keep you so shut up 
Arrie ! It is no better than slow murder ! ” ex- 
claimed Maria, indignantly. 


At Mrs* Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 225 

Now it was not true that she suffered for out- 
of-door exercise. Alice and Kate were always 
ready, one of them, to accompany her at all 
proper times, and even insisted on her going out 
more regularly than she wished to do. Still it 
was natural that she had an imprisoned feeling, 
and this was constantly encouraged and increased 
by Maria. 

“ One thing is certain, my poor Arrie, you 
shall not be deprived of any pleasure it is in my 
power to furnish you,” said she, in a note which 
accompanied a package of grapes. 

Unless a person has an unlimited supply of 
money, it is quite natural that grapes at a dollar 
and fifty cents a pound, with other luxuries in ' 
proportion, would soon exhaust a school-girl’s 
resources. Indeed, Maria had already borrowed 
money of her cousin George for Arabella as well 
as herself, and would gladly have opened an 
account, if she could have been trusted, at the 
restaurant. 

As it was, the desires of both girls for nice 


15 


226 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

eatables as well as ribbons and showy orna- 
ments, far exceeded their means, so they were 
put to their wits to discover some way of grat- 
ifying them. 

“We can manage to do with one History and 
Grammar, so I might sell your History and my 
Grammar at one of the second-hand book-stores 
on Cornhill, and raise a little money so,” sug- 
gested Maria. Arabella was quite ready to 
consent, and the books were disposed of at less 
than half their value. 

One by one they despoiled themselves of their 
own property, and then by easy gradations they 
proceeded to purloin and sell the books of the 
other pupils. 

Day after day, at the hour for attending to 
requests, Mrs. Winthrop’had inquiries to make 
respecting some missing text-book ; but day after 
day these inquiries were in vain, and the contin- 
ual losses grew more and more mysterious. 

One morning, however, the shameful secret 
came out. 


At Mrs, WintJirop^s Boarding-school, 227 

Adelaide Davenport left a French Grammar in 
a window of the lower seminary hall, while she 
went to the boarding-house for an exercise book. 

The window of her room looked into the back 
yard, and so across to the seminary, and as she 
walked back and forth before it, puzzling over a 
difficult sentence which she was trying to con- 
strue, her attention was attracted by the sight of 
Arabella Meachem’s pretty face in its gossamer 
frame of brown curls, at the window opposite. 
Glancing that way, she saw her take up the 
French Grammar ; then she disappeared. 

Adelaide had no distinct suspicion, but she 
felt that something was wrong, and thinking 
light might fall upon the strange question of 
what became of the lost school-books, she did not , 
go to Arabella ; but merely reported the Gram- 
mar as missing,- at Mrs. Winthrop’s desk. 

No response was made to the inquiry for it, 
but watching, she saw a conscious look pass be- 
tween Arabella and Maria Maconiber. 

Thereupon she went- to Mrs. Winthrop with 


228 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

her report, and the governess at once suspected 
the dreadful truth. On inquiring at the stores, 
she found the missing books, , and sufficient proof 
of the girhs guilt in the matter. 

Upon knowing they were discovered, Ara- 
bella cried copiously, and made abundant prom- 
ises, while Maria was indifferent and even pert. 

Neither of them, however, Mrs. Winthrop felt, 
could she allow any longer ; yet for the sake of 
their friends and their own future reputation, 
she did not openly expel, but quietly dismissed 
them. As there was, therefore, not much excite- 
ment about it, in a few days the school went on 
as placidly as before. 



CHAPTER XVn. 

“ What social hours we now recall I 
We end them here, for these are all ; 

The night wanes late, the dews fall fast ; 

The gladdest hours are soonest past.” 

URING the heat and glare of July, the 
time drew near for the end of the term, 
and the closing anniversary exercises. 
These were to consist of an address by 
a distinguished clergyman, reading of composi- 
tions by the graduates, with the presentation of 
diplomas to them, and singing by the school. 

A'mong other appointments, Angelina Temple- 
ton was to play a duet with another music 
pupil. (22^) 



230 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I shall die ! I know I shall die ! I wouldn’t 
do it for the whole world ! Nothing. would induce 
me to make myself so conspicuous there on the 
platform in front of everybody ; with that diffi- 
cult piece of music, too, that Miss LaMorest 
says only one person in a thousand plays cor- 
rectly ! No indeed ! It will do no good to ask 
me,” said she, on the very morning of anniversary- 
day. 

And certainly it seemed useless, for the more 
she was entreated the more obdurate she grew. 

It was quite in vain for the girls to entreat 
that she should not disarrange the exercises and 
disappoint little Kitty Langworthy, who had set 
her heart on distinguishing herself before her 
family friends who were to be present, by her 
part in the brilliant dash of music which she had 
• patiently practised so long. 

It was also in vain that the music teacher, in 
broken English, added her persuasions and assur- 
ances. 

“Let me entreat you. Mademoiselle. We 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 231 

canuot give up this bit music, for in truth it is 
awful much good.” 

Mrs. Winthrop, however, on hearing of the 
difficulty, understood better how to deal with the 
capricious and egotistic girl. 

“ Miss Templeton need not play, certainly, if 
she prefers not. We can do very well without 
her,” said she. 

Angelina, upon this, presently changed her 
decision, for she would by no means have failed 
of the opportunity for a public appearance. 

The sunny hours of the last day went swiftly 
by. After the public exercises in the church, 
the teachers, graduates, and invited guests ad- 
journed to a collation at the boarding-house, in 
the housekeeper’s parlor ; while the rest of the 
school ate in the usual dining-hall and amused 
themselves afterward as they pleased. 

Amid all the sadness and regret of parting 
from warm-hearted schoolmates and pleasant as- 
sociations, the anticipated joy of going home, 
outweighed the sorrow in almost every heart. . 


232 


Agnes and Her Heighhors. 


But of them all, none were more quietly 
happy over their preparations and packing than 
Alice and Kate. They were anxious to come, 
they had enjoyed and appreciated the privileges 
of the term ; but now it was past, and they looked 
forward with gladness to their escape from brick 
walls and crowded pavements to the simple 
beauty of their homes in an obscure country 
town, and to the coming meeting with Agnes 
Avery and their other friends. 



i 


4 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Again I sit within the mansion, 

In the old familiar seat ; 

And shade and sunshine chase each other 
O’er the carpet at my feet. 

Bayard Taylor. 

EANTIME, the anticipations and prep- 
arations for their return were far more 
lively and intense at Glencoe. 

Everybody, throughout the neigh- 
borhood, knew at what hour they were coming, 
and what horses and wagons would go to the 
depot for them, joining heartily in the interest . 
and excitement of an event which so much dis- 

( 233 ) 



234 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


turbed the ripples of society. But the greatest 
stir and joy prevailed, of course, in the farm- 
houses of Mr. Allen and Mr. Irving, in all of 
which, Agnes Avery fully sympathized. 

“ Do you think I had better wear my pink 
dress or my blue dress ? Pink is Kate’s favorite 
color, but my blue one is the newest,” queried 
Amelia Allen. 

“ I think your pink, if that is her favorite ; she 
will see your blue afterward, you know,” 
replied Agnes, entering heartily into Amelia’s 
petty perplexity. 

Before the girls left the cars, they saw the 
beaming faces of their mothers on the platform, 
while a few paces off stood Mr. Allen’s family 
carriage for them all, and Mr. Irving’s express 
wagon with Tim Mahoney standing guard over 
both. 

“ Sent for ! ” said these waiting conveyances, 
in their suggestive silence ; telling of welcoming 
homes and friends, of the ready-laid table covered 
with country-bleached linen, and spread with the 


At Mrs, Winthrop^s Boarding-school, 235 

favorite dishes of the new comers ; seeming so 
luxurious, with the riches of farm and dairy, af- 
ter the monotonous fare of a city boarding-house. 
“ Sent for ! ” said they to the solitary, friendless 
traveller ; who, seeking the lonesome hospitality 
of a strange hotel, looking with a sudden pang of 
homesickness at these mute expressions of affec- 
tion and thought for somebody. And to the 
somebodies for whom they were sent they were 
like a bit of home itself. 

While Willie was washing the carryall in the 
morning, Amelia and Nelly Hunter were busy 
trimming it inside with festoons of flowers, so 
when Kate and Alice came to get in they broke 
off in the middle of a sentence — both talking to- 
gether — and looked up with suiprise and admi- 
ration. For though the blossoms were some- 
what wilted, the old drab-lined vehicle looked 
like a niche in a floral temple and, as Willie 
would not be outdone by the girls, the horse 
stood under a bower of maple leaves and laurel 
blossoms, big as himself, almost. 


236 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

The tide of talk was not long interrupted, 
though, and it flowed on again without order or 
coherence, each one struggling, as most people 
usually do after a brief separation, to tell every- 
thing which has happened, during the whole 
time, in the first half-hour. 

Under the long-branched elms, along the 
curves of the winding river, between the hay 
fields where the farmers heaped up the fragrant 
clover and loaded it on their creaking carts, past 
the chm'ch and its little group of surrounding 
dwellings, and up to Mr. Allen’s door, under the 
shadow of the thrifty maples, the gayly decked 
carryall came at last with its joyous freight. 

About the door a glad group was gathered to 
meet them. First, on the lowest doorstep, the 
great yellow cat, which Kate had so earnestly 
longed to see, was placidly seated as though he 
was expecting somebody. And I dare say he 
was. He had seen the unusual stir through the 
house, and cats are not fools, whatever you may 
think. Then there was Amelia in her print 


At Mrs, Winthrap^s Boarding-school, 237 

gown, overloaded with flowers, something like 
the horse, jumping about for gladness ; while on 
the upper step Nelly Hunter stood, carefully 
holding her doll dressed in its best flounced mus- 
lin, with a necklace of green mallows’ seeds 
which the children called “ cheeses.’’ 

Behind them, in the piazza, sat Agnes Avery, 
with a look of quiet happiness and content upon 
the face which had grown beautiful by goodness, 
until even a stranger noticed its sweetness. ' Af- 
ter the first joyful greetings, Alice sat down by 
Agnes with her hand in hers talking with the 
eyes more than with the mouth, while Kate flew 
over the house from garret to cellar. 

“ I tell you, girls, father’s bean-poles are hand- 
somer than anything I saw in the public gardens, 
and you ought to see the cabbages, they look as 
well as roses,” said she, presently appearing with 
a green pickle in one hand and a saucer of cold 
succotash in the other.' 

Oh, the joy of coming home! of finding the 
old things in the old places, of touching the fa- 


238 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

miliar latches, and seeing the very cracks and 
hits of putty upon the window panes ! The 
clumsier and more peculiar they are, the more 
attached we become to the old spots. Indeed, I 
expect the very crooks, and corners, and narrow- 
ness of the streets make half the charm of the 
city of Boston, for instance. 

These oddities make just so many points for 
memory and affection to hang upon. 

‘‘ Now you aren’t any of you going away a step 
till after supper. It is all ready to set right on 
the table, and it isn’t every day we get Agnes 
here,” said Mrs. Allen, in her bustling, hospitable 
way. 

“ Oh, no ! Rosalie will think we don’t care 
anything about seeing her and the babies,” re- 
plied Mrs. Irving. 

“ I am just going to send for them. Amelia 
and Nelly will like to go and bring the babies,” 
returned Mrs. Allen, drawing out the table as 
she spoke. So it was settled, and pretty sOon 
Alice’s married sister, Rosalie, who had come 


At Mrs, WintTirop^s Boarding-school, 239 

from her home in New York to spend the Sum- 
mer at her father’s, appeared, coming down the 
road with a double baby carriage behind her, 
drawn by Amelia and Nelly, and containing 
two blue-eyed curly-heads as alike as two sweet 
peas. So they made a merry supper, and soon 
after Agnes went home, drawn in the old 
carryall by Charley Hunter and Willy Allen, 
who made famous horses, though a little given 
to prancing at first. She was followed by the 
Irvings in a little procession. “ Poor Agnes ! 

I 

she does have a tug since Mrs. Hathaway has 
lost her mind, but she is so cheerful under it, 
that it don’t seem right to pity her, either,” said 
Mrs. Allen, pausing a moment to look after them 
as she came to the door to shake the table-cloth. 

Mrs. Hathaway lost her mind ? What do 
you mean, mother ? ” asked Kate*. 

“ Why, haven’t we written you ? No I don’t 
believe we have about that. It has been coming 
on, gradual like, for quite a while, as Agnes 
knows now, come to look back and think ; and 


240 


Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

she lias got to sucli a pass she can’t be trusted 
out of sight more than a child. She is bent on 
wandering off about, nobody knows where, 
and Agnes can’t follow her, so she has to see 
that she doesn’t get off out of doors at all 
and I expect she has her match to contrive 
to keep her from slying away. Agnes is bright 
as a new cent about it. And always has some 
funny story to tell, just as though it was the 
best fun in the world to keep watch of a half 
demented person. Mrs. Hunter invited Mrs. 
Hathaway over to spend the afternoon with her, 
was how Agnes got away to-day,” said Mrs. 
Allen, who, working with her feet and hands as 
well as her tongue, had the table almost ready 
for the men’s supper by this time. 


Agnes and her Jheighbors, 


PART III. 


BOTH SIDES OF THE WATER. 


“ The hereafter comforts the hitherward.” 




^oth Sides of the Water. 


CHAPTER 1. 

Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell 
The dear Lord ord^reth all things well I 

"Whittier. 

GNES had not been long home. She had 
only hung up her buff cambric sun- 
bonnet on its nail behind the bedroom 
door, lighted a firo, and put the little 
Drown earthen teapot on the stove when, as she 
was placing the bread to toast on a piece of 
a broken grate, Kate rushed in like a spring 
wind, fresh and joyful. 

“ Don’t you ever tell anybody,.. Agnes, but I 

( 243 ) 



244 Agnes ' and Her Neighbors, 

have actually been kissing the old wooden latch 
to the wood-house door. It is more beautiful 
than any picture in the Athenaeum, for all I have 
scolded so many times about its being clumsy 
and inconvenient. But one thing, the houses 
in your neighborhood here, are all extremely 
low ; they look as though somebody had been 
hammering them into the ground,” she said. 

Just then Mr. Avery came in. “So you’ve 
got along, have you ? How do you do, ma’am ? 
Well, what for a time did you have in Boston ? ” 
he asked, hanging his hat on the end of the pole 
which was fastened by iron hooks over the stove. 

“ Oh, I missed you a good deal,” replied Kate, 
in a dismal tone. Mr. Avery laughed, and 
thought to himself that Kate had come back 
as bright as she went. 

“ Hadn’t you better go after Mrs. Hathaway 
before you eat your supper, father? she will 
never think to come home,” said Agnes, bringing 
out a plate of doughnuts for the table. 

“ Yes, I don’t know but what I had,” replied 
Mr. Avery, taking down his hat. 


Both Sides of the Water, 


245 


“ Oil, dear me ! ” sighed Kate, as she held 
out her hand for one of Agnes’s well-remembered 
doughnuts. 

“ I know it ! ” answered Agnes. “ But we 
mustn’t shirk our burdens on to other people. 
Mrs. Hunter was kind as she could be to invite 
Mrs. Hathaway over there at all, just so I could 
leave home. Don’t go yet, unless you feel as 
though* you must^ Kate ; I want to know what 
you think of Mrs. Hathaway. You can judge 
better than we can, it is so long since you have 
seen her.” 

So Kate sat down again, and directly Mrs. 
Hathaway came in with Mr. Avery. She 
stopped at the doorway on seeing some visitor, 
and shading her eyes with her hand, peered out 
at Kate without speaking. 

“ It is Kate Allen, Mrs. Hathaway. She has 
just come home from Boston,” said Agnes. 

“ Kate Allen ? I want to know if it is. 
Well, won’t you just tell me whose girl you be,” 
said Mrs. Hathaway, in a wandering way. 


246 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ John M’s. Don’t you know ? I live over 
in the next house, and am just home from school 
I haven’t seen you for quite a while. How 
have you been ? ” returned Kate, raising her 
voice as though the poor woman was deaf as well 
as dim. 

“ Oh ! I’ve been weU enough far’s I know. 
Now won’t you just tell me who your ma’am 
was when she was a girl. Like enough she was 
somebody I used to know. Only you needn’t 
screech so, I ain’t deaf.” 

“ She was Minerva Aplin. I dare say you 
remember her,” replied Kate, in a lower tone. 

“ Well, no, I don’t know as I do. But seems 
to me I used to be some acquainted with your 
father, though. You’ve got on a real pretty 
gownd. How much did you give a yard for it ? 
I reckon you couldn’t find such a good piece at 
our store. Let me see ! I’m a good mind to 
ask you whose girl you be.” 

When Kate left, Agnes went with her to the 
door, and stood a moment looking at the glory of 
the sunset sky. 


Both Sides of the Water. 247 

“ That is like you^ Agnes. It is no more won- 
derful for the sunlight to make such beauty from 
a little vapor, than it is that you can make your 
life seem so pleasant. You even throw a kind 
af attractiveness around Mrs. Hathaway,” said 
Kate, stooping to pick a violet, then running off 
homeward across the grass. 

I know how Agnes, like the old alchemist, 
turned common things to something precious as 
gold. She did not talk about the disagreeable 
sides of her life, nor think of them more than 
she could help. She was interested in every- 
body and everything as it came, and she did not 
let herself look forward, to dread what seemed 
to be coming, but left all that to the care of her 
Almighty and loving Heavenly Father ; and 
picking out the most cheerful part of every-day 
life, enjoyed all there was to enjoy moment by 
moment as it went by. I know the Lord had 
given her a marvellously beautiful gift of temper, 
but He has given us all the power to try to be 
like her ; and if we come to be, ever so little, we 


248 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

shall find ourselves by that little so much the 
happier. Although, as for that, I am sure Agnes 
never in her life stopped to think whether she 
was happy or not. No. She seldom thought 
about herself, anyway, and that was why other 
people thought about her so much. 

When Agnes turned back into the house she 
found Mrs. Hathaway lying upon the lounge. 

“ Hadn’t you better go to bed ? You look 
tired. I’m afraid your visit was too much for 
you,” said she. 

“ Visit! ” repeated Mrs. Hathaway. “ I haven’t 
been anywheres a-visiting. I only camped 
down here just fer a minute to see how it would 
seem, and I ain’t tired. But howsomever, I guess 
I’ll be mounting off to bed now.” 

Nevertheless, she had not gone when Mr. 
Avery had finished his supper, and Agnes had 
washed the dishes ; and even when it was time 
to shut the house for the night, she did not stir. 

“ Come Mrs. Hathaway, we are going to bed, 
ourselves, if you don’t want to be left here all 


Both Sides of the Water, 249 

night, you must get up now,” said Agnes, trying 
to speak with authority. 

“ Yes, yes ! I be,” returned Mrs. Hathaway; 
moving her foot a little, and evidently thinking 
she was really getting up. 

So Agnes was obliged to undress her and 
finally use some force in moving her from the 
lounge. And in the morning Mrs. Hathaway 
seemed just so helpless until at last Agnes gave 
up trying to urge her to be dressed. 

There seemed to be no disease about her only 
a general wearing out of the body which had 
served its owner for more than seventy years.” 

“ I advise that you send for a physician just 
for the speech of people. It may be, as you say, 
that Mrs. Hathaway does not need medicine, 
indeed I hardly consider myself that she does ; at 
the same time to save remark — there are 
always those who will talk at such times — I 
would recommend that you call in a physician,” 
said Mr. Starkweather, in his stately way. “ Not 
-that I suppose her near her end. I knew- a sim- 


250 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

ilar case in Portland where the patient, a 
younger individual than Mrs. Hathaway, and a 
man as it happened, took to his bed of a sudden 
— he fell in a fit, if I remember rightly — and 
lay there entirely helpless for eight years.” 

“ In that case Agnes will have a stent of it,” . 
added Mrs. Starkweather, who had come in with 
her husband to give a little neighborly counsel. 

Agnes did not reply to this consoling remark. 

“ Dr. Martindale has gone away and isn’t ex- 
pected back this week,” she said to Mr. Stark- 
weather. 

But she was not to be let ofP on such a flimsy 
excuse. “Why not try the new doctor over at 
Wallingford? He is a young man, but perhaps 
he will do as weh in this case as anybody. My 
man will have business to drive over there in the 
morning and if you say so I will direct him to call 
and send the doctor here,” replied Mr. Stark- 
weather. 

“ I think he had better, Agnes. We don’t 
want folks to say we haven’t done everything we 


Both Sides of the Water. 


251 


could do for Mrs. Hathaway,” put in Mr. 
Avery. 

So it was settled, and this turned a new leaf 
in the story of Agnes’s life, as it came to 
pass. 

The next day as Mr. Avery sat by Mrs. Hath- 
away, trying, with the best heart in the world, 
to amuse her by reading the deaths in the last 
county paper. Dr. Summerbell came. He looked 
at and talked to Mrs. Hathaway, but there was 
nothing to be done except to watch the flame of 
life as it flickered, and faded, and finally went 
out forever, in a few days or weeks at the 
farthest. 

But it was with a different expression in his 
practised eye that he looked at Agnes who, worn 
out with trying to lift Mrs. Hathaway, was lying 
in her old place upon the lounge, covering the 
pain she felt with a smile. 

“ Here is the real patient,” said Dr. Summer- 
bell, drawing a chair beside her. He was a 
man who could never see even a robin in dis- 


252 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

tress without trying to relieve it, and he began 
quietly and delicately to take careful observation 
of Agnes’s disease without seeming at all to do 
so. * 

- 

* 

V 



- '■'j; 




CHAPTER IL 

“ God send us the Hereafter, 

God rest the Long Ago I ” 

HE next day, although he had said he 
could do nothing for Mrs. Hathaway, 
very unexpectedly. Dr. Summerheli came 
again. 

“ I have been studying your case Miss Avery,” 
said he, “and I am very hopeful you may be 
cured. I will promise not to hurt you by my 
experiments, but your disease is one I have been 
long wishing to try the effect of certain treat- 
ments upon, and you will confer upon me, and 
perhaps upon the science of medicine a great 

( 253 ) 



254 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

benefit if you will consent to place yourself 
under my care.” 

Agnes looked at him as the lame man might 
have looked at Peter at the Beautiful gate of the 
temple. She had done even praying for perfect 
health, only for perfect patience, and hardly 
believed that even the Great Physician could 
make her body into a sound one. 

“You’d better let him try what he can do, 
daughter. Dr. Summerbell studied with Palmer,” ' 
said Mr. Avery, in the subdued tone he always 
had in speaking of his dead son. 

“No hurt to try him. The old doctor gives 
Summerbell a very good name,” put in Mrs. 
Wilkinson who came in for an hour or two 
every day to help Agnes now. “ Poor as I be 
I wouldn’t begrutch to wash out the bill for it 
myself if he can cure up Miss Agnes. 

Cure her up ! ” echoed Mrs. Hathaway feebly 
from the bedroom. “ Cure up that pleasant- 
eyed one.” 

Alice Irving, who had conie to the open win- 




She looked at the doctor with a pleading wistfulness that touched him 
more than words. Tage 255. 


Both Sides of the Water, 255 

dow outside, and stood there leaning over Agnes, 
did not speak, but she looked at the doctor with 
a pleading wistfulness that touched him more 
than words. 

“ Miss Avery has the ‘ genius to be loved,’ ” 
thought Dr. Summerbell, bending his eyes on her 
with a new interest. He had seen before only a 
sufferer whom his kindly skill longed to help ; 
but now, though her features were common, and 
worn also by pain, he caught sight of the light 
within, that made her face luminous and charm- 
ing to all who knew her. 

Meanwhile Agnes, Ijdng on the couch with her 
lips in the heart of a waterlily that Alice had 
brought her, turned away her head, faint for 
the moment with the sudden rush of memory, 
and surprise, and hope. 

Just then Kate Allen came in with an arm- 
full of ears of sweet corn, fanning herself with a 
burdock leaf as she came. 

“ Anything happened, or are you standing for 
your photographs ? ” she asked, stopping short 
on the threshold. 


256 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Good news for ye,” replied Mrs. Wilkinson, 
“ Dr. Summerbell, here, thinks mahby he can cure 
up Agnes, and he’s put it to her if she’ll consent 
for him to try his luck.” 

“ Consent for him to try ! of course she will I ” 
exclaimed Kate, dropping the sweet corn all in a 
heap and coming briskly forward with an air of 
command. “ And now what are you all staying 
around in the way for ? He wants to begin at 
once. Mr. Avery you just take a pail and go 
over to our house as fast as you can go for some 
buttermilk. Mother saved some for you this 
morning. And you needn’t hurry back. Stop 
and take a look at father’s pigs while you are 
there. He has been buying some of Mr. Cotter- 
ill,” she called after him as he laughed and 
started off. 

“ I wont wait to be driv. I ought to be get- 
ting up Aunt Debby, for to make her bed, this 
very minute, and that’s so,” said Mrs. Wilkinson, 
good-naturedly. 

Alice had already vanished from her leaning- 


Both Sides of the Water, 257 

place outside the window, and was down among 
the willows by the brook below the house crying 
like a child, for gladness. 

Not so Kate Allen. Having sent the others 
away, she staid by to take part in the consulta- 
tion and be on hand to run for spoons or medi- 
cine-glasses, or whatever might be needed. 

Dr. Summerbell had no divine gift of healing, 
but he surely had wonderful human insight and 
skUl, for from that day Agnes began slowly to 
recover. 

Mrs. Hathaway lingered many weeks, helpless 
as a little baby, but so patient and uncomplaining 
that her last days brought out more tenderness 
of feeling toward her than her thorny character- 
bad allowed before. 

“ How is it, doctor ? Are you likely to get 
Mrs. Hathaway on her feet again ? ’’ asked Mr. 
Starkweather, coming in one day as the doctor 
went out. 

The doctor shook his head. 

“ She has no disease for medicine to reach. 


17 


258 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Her body is simply worn out,” said he, lifting 
his hat courteously and passing on. 

Mr. Starkweather came in, put his hat and 
cane on the table, and seated himself with 
punctilious politeness. 

“Perhaps you may not be aware of it, 
neighbor,” he began in his measured manner, 
turning to Mr. Avery, who was sitting by the 
stove eating doughnuts almost as fast as Agnes 
could fry them, “ but there is a good deal of 
remark occasioned by the Doctor’s calling so 
frequently upon Mrs. Hathaway. It is thought 
by some, that he is willing to bring a pretty 
heavy bill upon the town, although he knows he 
can do the old lady no good.” 

“ Who is so wondrous wise as all that comes 
to ? ” returned Mr. Avery, taking a doughnut in 
each hand. 

“ Old Mr. Hunter for one,” replied Mr. Stark- 
weather, waxing a little sharp at Mr. Avery’s 
contemptuous tone. “ He and his son John pay 
as heavy a tax as there is paid in the town of 


* Both Sides of the Water, 259 

Glencoe, and they have reason to be interested 
in the way the money goes.” 

“ Those Hunters are so close they could sit 
seventeen on a shingle,” returned Mr. Avery, 
forgetting he had ever accused John Hunter of- 
fooling away the public money. “But, however, 
they might spare their feelings this time for the 
Doctor isn’t calculating to bring any bill against 
the town.” 

“ Ah ! Perhaps, then, he thinks he can work 
himself into practice along- the road, if he is 
seen riding over to Glencoe every few days. I 
wonder if he considers he is treating Dr. Martin- 
dale handsomely,” remarked Mr. Starkweather, 
stiffer and straighter than ever. 

Mr. Avery flushed and opened his mouth as if 
to reply, but just then, glancing at Agnes’s un- 
disturbed face, he “ thought better of it,” and 
tossed in half a doughnut instead of speaking. 

Directly Mr. Starkweather, having said his^ 
say, arose tS go, with some parting remark 
dropped J)ack as he was leaving the house, about 
“the speech of people.” 


•260 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ ‘ What folks say is to some people the 
judgment day,’ Mr. Beecher says,” remarked 
Agnes, looking at her father with such an amused 
smile that his wrath faded out at once, and only 
saying, “ The fools aren’t all dead yet,” he 
carried the pan of doughnuts, — what he had not 
already eaten — to Mrs. Hathaway’s bedside. 

“ Have a nutcake, Deborah ? ” said he, lapsing 
into the old-time name by which he called her 
when she was a redcheeked girl and went to 
singing-school with him. 

“ Nutcake ? Got nutcakes for supper ? Yehis ! 
Hezekiah was master fond of* nutcakes, make ’em 
pretty short and sweet,” said she, taking one 
but forgetting to eat' it. 

She always forgot to eat, now, unless the food 
was put into her mouth, and she soon forgot to 
move unless somebody moved her. But when- 
ever Agnes came to her bedside she stroked her 
dress with a caressing motion, and looked up in 
her face with such affection and Measure, that 
Agnes felt overpaid for all the self-denial and 
annoyance of the time so nearly past forever. 


Both Sides of the Water. 261 

Mrs. Hathaway never spoke, now, unless she 
was spoken to, and at last, one morning she went 
to sleep and never waked. 

At first her eyelids quivered, and with evident 
effort she opened partly one eye when Agnes 
called her name. But soon the entangled spirit 
lost entirely its familiar way outward through 
the old avenues of ear, and eye, and mouth, and 
she slumbered heavily on, heeding no voice, nor 
sound, nor friendly touch. After three days and 
nights of this unnatural sleep slie passed away, 
leaving thus forever the low, smoky rooms that 
had been made cheerful and charming by tho 
every-day beauty ancT sweetness of one common- 
place life. Just so an ugly brown jug that has 
held ottar of roses, catches and holds the fra- 
grance, and is forever full of perfume. 

“ I’ve got a good deal of the Thomas in my 
make-up, and I didn’t suppose I should live to . 
bless the day that Mrs. Hathaway came to Mr. 
Avery’s to^ve. But only think, Alice Irving, 
it was through her that Doctor Suminerbell is 


262 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

curing Agnes ! It isn’t often that the Lord shows 
us so plainly the good that conies from what 
seems to be clear trouble,” said Kate Allen. 

But as for Agnes herself she had not waited to 
see before she believed the Lord was choosing 
the very best for her. The best for her earthly 
as well as her spiritual life ; and blessed are 
they that have not seen and yet have believed.”' 

“The crowd of cares, the weightiest cross, 

Seem trifles less than light — 

Eartli looks so little and so low — 

When faith shines full and bright.” 






CHAPTER III. 


“Here in an inn a stranger dwelt, 

Here joy and grief by turns he felt ; 
Poor dwelling, now we elose thy door I 
The task is o’er 

The sojourner returns no more.” 


CLUSTER of Mrs. CotterilPs white 
.verbenas, and some leaves of scented 



geranium were put in Mrs. Hathaway’s 


folded hands, and a wreath of her 
choicest day-lilies laid upon the pillow where 
the shut eyes slumbered on to wake no more 
until the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and 
with the trump of God. 


(2G3) 


264 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

“ Flowers are not used now about the dead. 
They have entirely gone by with us,” remarked 
Miss €rordon. 

“ You don’t say ” returned Kate Allen, 
serenely, keeping at work upon the cross she 
was making of snowberries and cypress to lay 
upon the coffin lid. 

So, in a robe of white, with white flowers 
around about her, they buried Mrs. Hathaway at 
sunset on the last day of summer, while the 
skies were hung with tapestry of gold and 
scarlet, and blue, and the sinking sun touched the 
prosaic, every-day hills across the river with pur- 
ple enchantment. 

The swallows swung low over the warm earth, 
and the crickets and katydids piped a tuneful 
chorus, as from the little burial-ground on the 
green hillside floated soft and solemn the burial 
hymn,-— 

“ Death cannot make our souls afraid, 

If God be with us there ; 

We may walk through the darkest shade, 

And never yield to fear.” 


Both Sides of the Water, 


265 


Then, as daylight softened into twilight, the 
little procession of friends and neighbors came 
down the slope overgrown with innocence and 
dewberry vines, and purple gerardia, into the 
foot-path along the road that sauntered across a 
little sleepy brook and up a broken hill. They 
dropped off here and there at their own homes 
to go back to the duties of their narrow lives, 
almost as though this life that had just gone out 
upon the earth had never been. 

“ She looked dreadful natural,” observed Mrs. 
Starkweather, with her false hair askew, and her 
irblack berage shawl on one side, pricked full of 
burr-seed that had caught her unawares with 
their thorny fingers from the ragged hedge in an 
. unkept corner of the old burial-ground. “ The 
old lady has gone,” she continued, with a funeral 
sigh, ‘‘and I hope Agnes feels she has borne 
with her so she hasn’t got any reflections to 
make on herself now. And I can. say, — I don’t 
know but I can, — that I think more’n like as not 
Agnes has done it full better than the most of us 


266 Agnes and Her Neighbors* 

would. It has been a good school for her. I 
wonder who will have Mrs. Hathaway’s clothes ? ” 
Yes, “ a good school,” and the Lord had been 
the Teacher. For — 

“ Should all lack sense, 

Grod takes the text and preaches patience.” 




CHAPTER IV. 

“ She doetli little kindnesses 
Which most leave undone or despise ; 

Por nought that sets one heart at ease, 

And giveth happiness or peace, 

Is low-esteemed in her eyes.’’ 

LL for you ! I stringed ’em and picked 
’em ! ” cried Johnny Hunter, coming in 
not many mornings after Mrs. Hatha- 
way’s funeral, with a smear of red 
raspberries on his cheeks, and a stem of grass 
threaded half full of them in his hand. 
“ Grandma had 119 idee they was any this kind 
of berries so late, but they was. I found them 
’way on the behind side of tlie bushes. I had 

(2G7) 



268 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

another string, two ones, bnt my mama didn’t 
want the other one, and I eated it.” 

Johnny’s palm-leaf hat had served all the 
summer long, a great many purposes besides as 
a covering for his yellow head. Sometimes it 
had been a basket, sometimes a nest for the cat, 
and sometimes a water-pail. So, now that the 
summer was ended, there was left only a shred 
of a hat, sunburnt and ragged, with no brim 
worth mentioning, and holes in the crown 
through wliich. his hair struggled and stood • up 
like little flames. He had forgotten in his 
eagerness to take it off his head, where it 
stuck like a very small stem to a very large 
apple. His face was smeared with other things 
besides berry juice, and his bare brown feet 
were marked with dust and dew. But he 
glowed from hair to toe with such generous 
gladness, that he looked sweet all over ; and 
Agnes went and kissed him where he stood, dirt 
and dimples, and all. 

“ Ma said,” pursued Johnny, seating himself 


Both Sides of the Water, 


269 


on the little chair in the corner, which Agnes 
kept for her small guests, “ that if Mr. Avery 
was here, I might stay a minute, and if you 
were here I might stay an hour.” 

“ I am here, you see, and I should like you 
to stay an hour,” replied Agnes, smiling to her 
father, who sat at the old-fashioned cherry desk, 
making up his accounts. 

“ Yes’m. And ma said, perhaps you’d have 
some wood for me to bring in, or else some chips 
to pick up. If you have, I can do it well as 
not. I can do a good many things,” continued 
Johnny. “ Sometimes I sew. _ And once I was 
sewing, and I had it on my knee, and I sewed it 
all the way, and then had to rip it all up. I can 
talk Dutch, too. Once I told a little beggar boy, 
‘Nix cum'rouse,’ and he went off straight as a 
string, papa said. And I can make poetry. I 
made some • last night, and I’ll tell it to you if 
you want me to, do you ? 

Beneath the eaves the swallows build ; 

Beneath the eaves the roses peep. 


270 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Beneath the shed the dog does hark, 

On the roof the dove does coo I 
Hark I Hark I 
In the dark I 

Did you know I could make poetry like that ? ” 
he asked, triumphantly. 

“I never suspected such a thing,” replied 
Agnes, who was brushing up the crumbs from 
under the breakfast-table with a wing and dust- 
pan. 

“ This isn’t so big as my mama’s dust-pan,” 
said Johnny, next. “ It is going to be growing, 
isn’t it ? ” 

But before Agnes answered, he thought of 
something else. 

“ Why, there ! Mrs. Hathaway has gone off 
and left her cape I ” said he suddenly, catching 
sight, through the open door, of the wadded 
cape of green Circassian, that Mrs. Hathaway 
usually wore atop of everything else. “They 
don’t wear any but white clothes, though, up in 
Heaven, do they ? But,” he added, incredulously. 


Both Sides of the Water, 271 

“ Mrs. Hathaway hasn’t gone to Heaven. She’s 
only in the hurying-ground. I saw Mr. Wilkin- 
son dig and spatter the dirt all over her, and Ben 
he howled,” 

“ Did your father ever let you look inside his 
watch ? ” asked Agnes. 

“ Oh yes, ma’am ! lots ! He lets me ’most 
always when I ask him, only but sometimes he 
don’t. When I was a little boy I used to think 
I could blow pa’s watch open, but papa had his 
thumb on the opener all the time, only I didn’t 
know it. Sometimes it don’t seem but a little 
while since 1 was a little boy, but it is a great 
many yearsf said Johnny, with a wise shake of 
his small head. 

“ But what did you see inside the watch ? ” 
asked Agnes, coming to sit down beside him with 
the pail of beans she was shelling. 

“ Oh, I saw wheels, and whirling things, and 
clicks, and w-h-e-e-ls,” answered J ohnny . 

“Well, do you know if those were taken out 
and put away that the face of the watch would 


272 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

look just the same ? The figures and the hands 
would he there all as they were before. But the 
hands wouldn’t tell the time any more because 
the little wheels that made them move would be 
gone. . So the watch wouldn’t be good for any- 
thing, and your Papa wouldn’t care to carry it in 
his pocket any longer. It is like that with Mrs. 
Hathaway. Her body was of no use after the 
spirit that looked out at her eyes, and talked 
through her mouth, is gone. So we had to put 
it away in the ground out of sight. But she 
isn’t in the dead body that was buried any more 
than she is in the old cape she used to wear.” 

“ Oh, I know ! It is Mrs. Hathaway’s little 
wheels that has gone to Heaven ! ” said Johnny, 
after thinking it over for awhile. “ And won’t 
she be ‘ town’s poor ’ any more ? ” 

“ No, never any more,” replied Agnes. “If she 
was one of God’s dear children while she was on 
the earth, she has gone now to live at home in 
God’s house, and 

* The meanest child of glory 
Outshines the radiant sun.’ ” 


Both Sides of the Water. 273 

“ Why didn’t they sing, ‘ Let the loud praises 
sing ! ’ then ? They oughter done it,” said John- 
ny. 

Mr. Avery was still at the desk with his back 
toward Agnes and the little one, but he heard 
all they said, and his thoughts followed and went 
beyond their words. 

Here we are,” he was thinking, “ eating from 
the same platter and sleeping under the same 
rafters, yet just as different in the object of. life 
as a lark and a lizard. Agnes looks after -what 
we shall eat and what we shall wear ; she cooks 
our victuals, and mends, and makes, she don’t 
neglect those things, to be sure, and she takes an 
interest in everything and everybody that comes 
along. But any one can see all the time that she 
lives in the best part of her nature ; it is the top 
faculties she is aiming to develop. While I am 
living for nothing but the earthly side ; just what 
will be of no more use to me than Mrs. Hatha- 
way’s old cape in a veiy few years. I must be 
either a fool, or crazy.” 

18 


274 Agnes and her Neiglilors, 

“ Mr. Avery was staunch in all the “ doc- 
trines,” and he knew exactly what ought to be 

0 

expected of every “ professor.” The church had 
no more exacting guardian than he. So, far as 
the religion of the head went, his was faultless, 
but he never made his standard a personal matter 
for himself. 

“ I mean to look out for the main chance while 
I am in this world,” he had said, “ and the same 
in the next when I get there.” 

But now .immediately there fell from his eyes, 
as it had been, scales. 

“ I must be crazy, or a fool ! ” he repeated to 
himself. “ Here I have been these five and sixty 
years looking after beanpods instead of beans. I 
have got to take a fresh start.” 

As he thought these thoughts in the silence of 
his own heart, Nelly Hunter ran in. 

I’ve got into ink I ” she said, triumphantly. 

“Into whatf Into initV^ repeated Agnes, 
looking at her unspotted pink frock and clean 
white apron. “ Where ? ” 


Both Sides of the Water, 


275 


“ At niy school. Got a copy book and a new 
pen, all my own, to keep always, that Uncle Ed- 
ward left for ma to give me soon as ever I could 
write writing. A gold handle to it made of sil- 
ver. I’m going to write a letter to him with it, 
and grandma says he will be pleased as Punch. 
It is time for me to go to school now. I must 
hurry along, or I’ll get a tardy. And, Johnny, 
you must go home, ma wants you.” 

A tiny cloud floated over the sunshine of 
Johnny’s face ! 

‘‘ I wish I could go to school. I’d oughter do 
it. I wear pocket-clothes, and I weigh as much 
as you do, Nelly Hunter,” said he, in a gloomy 
tone. 

“ Away down the lane ! It is too far, Johnny, 
for you, and those benches are terrible hard. I 
am real tired, myself, sometimes,” replied Nelly, 
holding up her delicate little lady-like head, and 
looking as though she felt as old as her grand- 
mother. “ And truly you must go home now as 
tight as you can go ; ma said so.” 


276 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ Then I will, if Miss Agnes will give me some 
bean shells ” said Johnny, getting off his chair as 
though there was wax on it, and bringing from 
out his pocket some white pebbles that looked 
like peppermint drops, a pair of lucky borjes, a 
horse-chestnut, and a rusty nail. “ That is all 
I’ve got” said he, “and Willy Allen, he’s well, 
you see, he’s got such a lot o’ things in his pocket, 
he can’t find anything. Should you think I 
could have some bean-shells.” 

“I should think you can,” replied Agnes. 
“ You may have all the ‘ bean-shells,’ and what 
you don’t want you can give to that little pig of 
yours, with my compliments.” 

Johnny’s face beamed. He felt himself a man 
in a minute, though he did wear an apron over, 
his “ pocket-clothes.” So, filling his hat as well 
as his pocket, he started off up the sunshiny 
street, while Nelly went the other way on her 
road to school. 

Agnes went to the door to see them off, and 
then, after picking one of Mrs. Wilkinson’s violets, 


Both Sides of the Water. 


277 


and pinning it at her throat, she turned hack to 
put the beans in a net ready to boil for dinner, 
and to stir up an Indian pudding. 

While she busied herself thus, in and out of 
the buttery, her father was walking up and down, 
to and fro, through the narrow kitchen, and into 
his bedroom beyond. He often paced about in 
this measured way when he was excited about 
any neighborhood matter, and Agnes supposed 
there was nothing more important upon his mind 
than whether Mr. Cotterill’s fat cow ought to 
bring more than Mr. Hunter’s ; or whether Mr. 
Allen had done well in selling his wool now, 
rather than keep it over till spring. 

So she dipped, and measured, and stirred, 
quite unconscious that the perpetual conflict be- 
tween the powers above, and the powers below, 
was being fought out, once again, within sound 
of her breath. She was busy as she worked, 
thinking over a plan that had come into her 
mind while the children were talking about 
Johnny’s going to school, and hardly noticed 


278 


Agnes and Her Neighhors. 


when her father’s monotonous stepping ceased, 
as, crowding his hat on his head, he hastil}' went 
out, shutting the heavy outer door behind 
him. 




CHAPTER V. 

^ The harvest dawn is near, 

The year delays not long, 

And he who sows with many a tear. 

Shall reap with many a song.” 

T nightfall of the same day Kate Allen 
pnt in her head. 

“ Agnes ! Where are you going ? 
Going to meeting to-night ? ’’ she called. 

“ Here I am,” replied Agnes, appearing from 
the cellar-way with a mackerel in her hand. 
“ I’ll be ready in a minute, as soon as I have put 
this fish a-soak. I shall have to stop and light 
the lamp first, though. Father don’t like to find 

( 279 ) 


280 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

the house ‘ looking like a funeral,’ as he says, 
when he gets home.” 

So saying, Agnes lighted the little lamp, turn- 
ing up the wick to make a cheerful blaze, and 
with a parting housewifely look about the room, 
to see that, the cat wasn’t shut in, that the lamp 
wasn’t in danger of setting anything afire, and 
that the windows were all closed, she followed 
Kate out under the fading glories of the sunset 
sky. 

Hollyhocks and dahlias were nodding to one 
another in the neighboring gardens. Petunias 
and phloxes held up their cheerful faces along- 
side vines and climbing blossoms that over-ran 
and adorned dead stumps and stiff fences with 
the full luxuriance of early autumn. The air 
was spicy with the odors of ripening frujt, and 
rosy with the sunset glow, but there was a faint 
feeling of chill in it, dire prophecy of the com- 
ing frosts, that were on their swift way to turn 
all this beauty to blight and blackness. 

“ It is so good to be able to go out in this world 


281 


Both Sides of the Water. ^ 

■S- 

like other people ! ” said Agnes, looking about 
her with a sigh of satisfaction. ; 

“ Likely you find it good to have tte . privilege 
of the Tuesday-evening prayer-meeting once 
more,” said Kate. “ And I suppose you’ll think 
I am horrible when I say they are an unmitigated 
bore to me. Here they have been going on ‘ at 
early candle-lighting ’ ever since Methuselah was 
a small baby, in this little endless round, like a 
kitten running after its tail. From Mr. Cotter- 
I ill’s to Mr. Hunter’s ; from Mr. Hunter’s to Mr. 
Allen’s ; from Mr. Allen’s to Mr. Irving’s ; from 
Mr. Irving’s to Mr. Starkweather’s, and then to 
Mr. Cotterill’s again. I know how the wall 
paper looks on every one of these kitchens ; 
where it has been patched, and where it needs 
' patching ; how many panes of glass there are in 
the windows, which ones are cracked and which 
are puttied. I know just who’ll be there, what 
' they will wear, what they will say, and how tired 
of it they will look. There will be the same 
hymns, the same prayers, the same set talks, and 


282 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

they will all fall on the outside of my mantilla. 
There will be no more life than there is in a bas- 
ket of husks. ; nothing to stir up a thought or a 
feeling. I never feel so little pious as I do at 
Tuesday-evening prayer. There is no good in 
going, I think I commit sin every time, but I 
have to go, or I should shock the neighborhood. 
Everybody feels just so, only nobody else would 
dare say it, and the Lord is no more pleased with 
such a farce than we are. He don’t want us go- 
ing to prayer-meeting merely because we haven’t 
the courage to stay away. If there was a spark 
of life or interest nobody would be ‘ faircer,’ for 
th^in as Mrs. Hathaway used to say, than I, but 
now they are unendurable. Speak, why don’t 
you, and not think me to death ! There ! ” said 
Kate, stopping like a horse suddenly reined up. 

“ Whose fault is it that the meetings are 
dull ? ” asked Agnes, laughing a little at Kate’s 
vehemence. “ I don’t think it becomes us, who 
don’t do anything to make them interesting, to 
blame those who do the best they can.” 


Both Sides of the Water, 283 

“ Well,” replied Kate, “that is what I say. 
If the best is so poor, why try? Nobody really 
wants to go, but we each have to on account of 
the moral sense of the others. We ought not 
to feel it a burden, but to go or not, as we find 
it profitable.” 

“ Now, Kate, you know, yourself, that a com- 
munity is better for having the moral sense that 
sustains a prayer-meeting in it. I don’t suppose 
anybody would go to a commonplace meeting, of 
his own natural desire, any more than he would 
take to tomatoes. But we mustn’t sift out all 
the unpleasant things, and do the dpties that 
suit our aesthetic tastes alone, must we ? There 
is always something to enjoy in the dullest meet- 
ing, if one is looking for it. Sometimes I find it 
in a hymn.” 

“ You might find it there at home,” returned 
Kate, “ you’ve got a hymn-book.” 

“ I might not be trying to find it if I was at 
home,” said Agnes. “ I’ll tell you, Kate, how I 
feel about it,” she continued, with tender awe. 


284 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ I have great faith in the power and presence 
of the Holy Spirit. In the early ages of the 
world, God talked to men. But after Christ 
came upon the earth in a visible body, the special 
communion with the Father ceased, and He re- 
vealed Himself then through the Son. And 
after Christ was received into Glory again, the 
Spirit came, and is now the Divine Medium 
through which the heavenly influence comes to 
us. I am always conscious of a direct com- 
munication when I ask for gifts of the Spirit, 
and I believe that is the road to send our prayers 
on. And.I tell you, Kate, when we pray for the 
Heavenly presence in our own hearts, we pray 
in a vague way for a general outpouring. Each 
for himself, and the work would be done.” 

“ Oh yes,” cried Kate, kindling quickly at 
Agnes’s earnest words. “ But they won’t. 
They’ll go on with their old set prayers that 
there’s no more life in than there is in a sap 
bucket. Don’t I know them by heart ? It is 
monthly concert to-night, so they will all be 


Both Sides of the Water, 285 

praying at a mark. They won’t hit it, though. 
Old Mr. Hunter will rise up on his tiptoes, and 
make his voice shake, and pray that the time 
may speedily hasten when Ethiopia will stretch 
out her hands to God. Next contribution Sun- 
day he will put ten cents in the hat for the 
cause of missions. Then Mr. Cotterill will say, 
‘ we beseech thee, O Lord, to come among us 
with Thy stately steppings, and to show Thyself 
on the giving hand, pouring forth a blessing 
upon this branch of Thy Zion till there shall be 
no more room to receive it.’ I can say them all 
with my eyes shut. They act just as though 
God was off somewhere about His business, and 
had got to be coaxed to come, instead of being 
everywhere like the sunlight, so that all we’ve 
got to do to see is to open our eyes.” 

“ There you go,” said Agnes. “ I said each 
for himself. We haven’t any power over the 
workings of other people’s souls, only indirectly. 
I for myself, that is all I can do. If you oblige 
yourself not to give way to any temptation to 


286 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

criticise, but persist in confining yourself to 
keeping open the door of your own heart to the 
coming in of the Spirit, you will find more enjoy- 
ment and profit than you think.’’ 

While Agnes was speaking, the girls had come 
up the long, steep hill, on the top of which Mr. 
Starkweather’s prim, yellow house was perched 
with a row of Lombardy poplars in front and a 
weeping ash behind. 

In the falling twilight they went up the walk 
leading from the gate to the front door. It was 
paved with scallop-shells and bordered by holly- 
hocks and tiger-lilies. The open door showed a 
little square entry with a braided rag-mat,, a red 
table covered with a pieee of green baize, and a 
flight of stairs that had evidently had its head 
turned, and went wandering on, uncertain where 
to put its next step. 

The men and boys as they came in, dropped 
their hats on the table and went in through 
another open door. Here was a long room with 
a barq floor painted with ochre, and a double 


Both Sides of the Water, 


287 


row of hard, straight chairs placed around. They 
were nearly all occupied by farmers, fresh from 
their harvests, with the smell of the mould yet 
upon them, and their wives sitting up straight 
and tired, with sun-bonnets on their heads and 
hymn-books in their hands, but looking as though 
they missed their knitting-work. Between the 
two uncurtained windows was a table, holding a 
Bible, some hymn-books and several candles in 
painted iron candlesticks. There was also a 
pair of iron snuffers standing up high and fierce 
on three legs. 

For awhile there was a decorous silence in the 
room made more audible by the piping of the 
insect orchestra outside, and the imperative ticking 
of Mrs. Starkweather’s clock that stood with an 
aggressive cant on a shelf just big enough to hold 
it, exactly opposite the square pine-framed look- 
ing glass. When its hands pointed to half-past 
seven Mr. Starkweather who had been sitting in 
a stiff, leather-covered arm-chair by the table arose. . 

“ The customary time for commencing our 


288 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

meeting has come,” said he, looking through his 
round-eyed spectacles like some new species of 
gray owl. “We will begin by singing St. Mar- 
tyns.” Which he accordingly proceeded to pitch 
two notes too high. 

They sang the hymn which grated on every 
musical ear like the filing of a saw, and then Mr. 
Starkweather prayed a long, precise prayer in 
which he spoke, as he always did, of the “ never- 
endless ” eternity to which we are all hastening, 
and asked in stereotyped formula for a blessing 
upon the labors of our beloved pasture.'’^ He 
always called his grazing ground 2i paster and felt 
it was becoming to make a distinction when it 
came to the minister. Then followed another 
slow, dragging hymn, more formal prayers, 
several hackneyed exhortations and then 
another hymn. -Just as much like fifty other 
meetings that had preceded it as one dandelion is 
like another. But this one with its trite and 
stale routine was not the same to Kate. Actino* 

o 

upon Agnes’s counsel she had heard everything 


Both Sides of the Water, 289 

with anointed ears. She heard the stereotyped 
phrases in their monotonous repetitions with 
their own rich and deep meaning, and she prayed 
there in her heart, whether the speaker did or not. 
So she found comfort in the sweet old hymns, 
in the tender words of “ Christ’s love-talks ” 
that had been read, and in the communion of 
saints, simple and homely though it was. 

Bringing the fire in her soul, Kate had found 
warmth and light, and^ making the most of what 
she had, more was added, for unto every one 
that hath shall be given. 

Mr. Everett, Alice Irving’s Uncle from Bos- 
ton, was here to-night, and before the meeting 
closed he rose to speak. 

“ Suppose some one had been brought to this 
room,” said he, “ who knew nothing about 
Christian worship, and did not understand why 
we are here. Who only knew that we call our- 
selves God’s children. Would he suspect what 
we are doing ? 

“ When I lived in Liverpool we used to gather 


19 


290 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

around the breakfast-table in my house every 
morning with great gladness. The mother sit- 
ting at the head, the father at the foot, and the 
children between, sure of haying all they wished. 

‘ Mother, these cakes are very nice. Will you 
please give me another ? ’ they said, with confi- 
dent freedom. It was like this all through break- 
fast time. But after breakfast my way to busi- 
ness led past the almshouse, and here I used to 
see pinched and scrawny vagrants waiting in 
the shadow of the gateway to beg a morsel of 
bread. They seemed hardly to dare ask, and 
asked as though not more than half expecting 
to receive anything. And what they grudgingly 
received they took unthankfully. 

“ Now, my dear Christian brothers and sisters, 
are we these children gathered about our Fa- 
ther’s table, or are we these doubting, ungrateful 
beggars ? ” 

Every one in the room felt the magnetism of 
these living words. 

Mrs. Cotterill’s tired eyes brightened, old Mr. 


Both Sides of the Water, 


291 


Hunter leaned forward on his stick and gazed 
intently at the speaker, Mr. Starkweather's little 
granddaughter Grace lifted her sleepy head, and 
even the smoke-colored cat straightened himself, 
pricked up his ears, and looked sharply around as 
though he detected something unusual. 

“My friends,” said Mr. Allen, rising impul- 
sively to his feet “We conduct ourselves indeed 
like beggars at the gate instead of sons of God in 
our Father’s house. 

“ When I was a boy, it was the fortune of our 
family to be separated. But a good aunt kept 
the hearth warm, and once a year, at Thanksgiv- 
ing-time, we all went home. I remember well how 
we looked forward to those few days, and how 
glad we were to get there. Anything we want- 
ed, and as much as we liked, was ours, then. 
Mince pies, and doughnuts, and apples, and cake, 
and walnuts, and molasses to make candy — any- 
thing and everything we had a joyous right to. 
We were children at home once more. We 
have not felt like this to-night, here about our 
Father’s table.” 


292 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Then Mr. Starkweather, stirred out of his 
usual preciseness, read, in a voice touched with 
feeling, verses of the closing hymn, — 

“ Children of God, who, faint and slow, 

Your pilgrim path pursue. 

In strength, and weakness, joy and woe, 

To God’s high calling true I 

Why move ye thus with lingering tread, 

A doubting, mournful band ? 

Why faintly hangs the drooping head ? 

Why fails the feeble hand ? ” 

So the meeting ended, the people lingering 
for a few minutes in little groups to talk to- 
gether. 

“ Are you pretty well to-night ? I s’pose you 
miss Mrs. Hathaway some,” said Mrs. Stark- 
weather, coming up to Agnes as she stood by 
the door somewhat aside, waiting for Kate to 
speak with Mr. Everett. “ Now I don’t know 
as I shall have a better chance ; there is a ques- 
tion I want to ask you. And that is if you 
know how your father feels in his mind anything 


Both Sides of the Water, 293 

about it ? Whether he has any religious exer- 
cises or not ? ” 

“ Father isn’t a man who speaks of his feel- 
ings,” Agnes began. 

Mrs. Starkweather spared her the pains of 
saying more, for she was a woman for whom it 
was always easier to talk than to listen. 

“ But you mustn’t forget the word in season,” 
she interposed, with trembling earnestness. 
“ You make his state a subject of prayer I dare 
say. Do ^^ou feel that you can pray the prayer 
of faith ? ” 

“ I have given him into the care of the Lord, 
Mrs Starkweather,” said Agnes, with a cheerful 
trust shining in her face. “ I think like this 
about it. The burdens that are too heavy for 
me are nothing for the Infinite God. And when 
anything that I have committed to His care, be- 
gins to roll in upon me, I say to myself, that 
isn’t mine to look after, I have left the responsi- 
bility of that with Jesus. He knows the wish 
of my heart about it, and how to accomplish it. 


294 Agnes and Tier Neighbors, 

a great deal better tlian I do. When I try to 
climb up by help of the Holy Spirit into the 
higher life where I may come into the presence 
and the peace of the Lord.” 

Mrs. Starkweather was a truly religious woman, 
though her small intellect was wrapped around 
with a low-lying fog of self and narrow-minded- 
ness. She followed Agnes’s thought about as a 
snail might the soaring of a carrier dove. Yet 
there was something in it that struck the chord 
of, her own faith in the Heavenly rest. 

“ You can say with the poet, then, 

‘ Keligion is a treasure.’ 

But did you ever try placing tracts and other 
pious works round where Mr. Avery might hap- 
pen to take them up? I’d love to lend you 
‘ Hervey’s meditations among the Tombs.’ 
There is a good deal of good reading ; of very 
interesting reading in that, perhaps it might be 
the instrumental means of striking him with 
conviction,” said she, anxiously. 


Both Sides of the Water, 295 

Ah, Mrs. Starkweather ! The living epistle, 
Agnes herself, better than any printed book, sets 
daily before her father the power of the Chris- 
tian belief. 

When Agnes reached home she found Mr. 
Avery pacing up and down the floor as though 
he had never left off. 

He did not seem inclined to talk, so she sat 
down by the little lighted stand that held her 
work-basket, her scrap-book, a pot of gillyflowers 
and Palmer’s pocket Bible ; and began to read 
the ninety-first Psalm to herself. 

‘‘ He that dwelleth in the secret place of the 
most High shall abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty.” 

“Daughter,” said Mr. Avery, stopping sud- 
denly in his walk, “ I have been thinking of Mr. 
Esterbrook’s sermon, last Sunday. ‘Anybody 
can’t be a mature Christian at once,’ he said, ‘ but 
he can begin to be one. At any moment,’ said 
he, ‘ a man can choose, to be a Christian. The 
first step is to make the choice ; then go to 


296 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

God for help ; then do the thing whatever it is 
that comes next.’ I have been thinking it over. 
I have been thinking that I have lived for myself 
all my days. And, as Mr. Esterbrook said, that 
is the essence of sin, however moral a man may 
be. I am going to begin over again. I have 
made up my mind to choose a Christian life. 
Now you may read your chapter aloud if you’ve 
a mind to, and we will make a commencement of 
family prayers.” 

Not in a great and strong wind, not in an 
earthquake, not in • a fire, but in a still, small 
voice the Lord had spoken, and to Agnes’s hushed 
ear it seemed that all the earth kept silence be- 
fore Him. 



CHAPTER VI. 

“A deed, a word, our careless rest, 

A simple thought, a common feeling, 

If He be present in the breast. 

Has from Him powers of healing.” 

more Agnes thought of it the more 
> felt, that, with her improved health, 
s could teach for two or three hours in 
ih day some of the children of the 
neighborhood who were too delicate or too young 
to plod all the weary way to the district school- 
house, where Miss Gordon made a model of her- 
self for all the teachers in the county. 

The mothers of the little ones were delighted 
when she spoke of her plan. 



( 297 ) 


298 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

So all through the gaudy, ripening autumn, and 
the bleak and blowing winter, excepting for now 
and then a short vacation, Agnes kept her 
school. 

It was an odd sort of school, where the 
scholars studied without books, worked when 
they were at play, and played when they 
worked. They learned arithmetic with beans, 
geography from apples, physiology from their 
own bodies, and chemistry and philosophy from 
the fire in the stove, the milk in the buttery, 
and the frost upon the window-panes. 

Each day one of the children brought some- 
thing, whatever he pleased : a flower, a stone, a 
bird’s nest or a bit of calico, and Agnes made 
that the lesson of the day. She found out what 
each one knew about it, and she told them all 
she knew, or could learn from the encyclopedias 
that Dr. Summerbell had loaned her. Then they 
learned together the verse of a hymn or a text in 
the Bible that seemed appropriate to the subject. 
One thing in these simple teachings led to 


Both Sides of the Water, 299 

another. Sometimes she told or read stories to 
them ; sometimes she taught them poems. She 
sung, and talked, and practised gymnastics with 
them. And all the time, while their small 
folded minds were expanding under her influence, 
she found her own quickened and freshened by 
contact with these young inquiring ones. 

Thus, at last, winter most reluctantly gave 
way to the coming spring, but with many a back- 
ward look and grudging step. 

One May morning, when the lilac-buds were 
swelling, and the pussy willows were covered 
with soft buds, when a faint yellow mist hung 
over the willows along the water courses, and 
the sugar maples looked as though they were 
trying in vain to hold a beautiful secret in their 
rough hearts, Agnes saw from her window the 
grass that had been working hard for a month to 
make its way in the world sifted over with fast 
falling snow. It was a very pretty sight, as 
though the ground had been covered with sea- 
green frosted illusion. 


300 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

But little Grace Starkweather did not think 
so. 

“I hate the snow ! ” said she, scowling. “ See 
it on the roof and all over the grass ! It looks so 
dismal ! I hate it ! I wish I could stop it ! ” 

“ There isn’t going to be much snow,” replied 
Agnes, cheerfully. 

“ Yes there is, too ! ” returned Grace, glad of a 
chance to contradict. “ Look at the sky ! It is 
gray as it can be, and the old snow is coming 
down in that slow, hateful way, as though it had 
nothing else to do. Little scrimped-up flakes 
that act as though they felt so grand ; as if they 
know they can bury you up if they want to, for 
all they are so small.” 

“ Oh, well. Grade, this won’t last long,” said 
Agnes. “ It is spring, you know, and the days 
are half way back to their longest. Winter can’t 
do much now if it tries.” 

“Yes it can, too,” returned Grace, crossly. 
“ Grandfather said he knew a black frost once to 
come on the fourth of July. And ’twill this 


Both Sides of the Water. 301 

year. We haven’t had a speck of decent 
weather yet. It has been snow, snow, snow; 
blow, blow, blow. I’m mad with it ! ” 

So Grace sat looking through the small win- 
dow-panes with her face more gloomy than the 
weather, while a flock of English sparrows flut- 
tered in and out the evergreen hedge about Mr. 
Allen’s garden opposite, like bees about a hive, 
chirping and calling, as merry as ducks in a 
summer shower. 

An early robin pecked at a piece of meat that 
Agnes had stuck outside the window-sash with 
a fork, and a soft- voiced phoebe called again and 
again to her sister in some neighboring tree-top. 
In-doors the Are muttered and chuckled to itself, 
and the soup that was cooking in a covered pot 
at the back of the stove simmered, and bubbled, 
and sent up odorous steam that filled the room 
and made hazy pictures on the windows. 

For Agnes’s school was in her kitchen, and 
she went on with her daily work, often, while 
she taught the children. 


302 


Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Presently Grace sighed, such a dreary sigh 
that Agnes looked out from the buttery where 
she was moulding a loaf of bread. 

“ Are you all there, children ? Has school 
begun ? ” said she. 

“ Yes ma’am, school’s begun,” replied Johnny 
Hunter. “It’s begun, and we are all here. 
Freddy Irving is here, too. He wears clothes, 
and he cuts up paper just like money, and makes 
large paper-worth. He cuts up paper like 
mountains ! I’ll give you five a-dollar, Freddy, if 
you’ll give me five a-dollar.” 

“Well, it is Grace Starkweather’s turn to • 
bring the lesson, to-day. What has she brought, 

I wonder ? ” said Agnes, wiping her, hands and 
coming out of the buttery, rolling down her 
sleeves as she came. 

Grace scowled worse than ever. You would 
never have thought she was singing “ I want to 
be an angel,” half an hour before. She shook 
her head as though it was somebody else’s head 
that had got on her shoulders by mistake, and 
she was trying to shake it off. 


Both Sides of the Water. 


303 


“ This nasty snow ! ” said she, stamping. “ I 
know where there are wild pinks in blow by 
this time, and I was going to get one and bring 
for a surprise. But my grandmother wouldn’t 
let me go down to the Brown-swamp. “ She 
said I’d get drabbled up, and catch my death, 
trapesing around in this petticoat snow.” 

“ If you’d a told me, I’d a gone,” said Johnny 
Hunter. “ Or I’d a brought some of our roos- 
ter’s feathers ; she’s dead ; and when her head 
was way cut off, she squirled around. Booster’s 
feathers would be good' to bring, wouldn’t they, 
Miss Agnes ? ” 

“ Very good indeed,” replied Agnes, “ but it 
is Grace’s day, and I want her to tell me what 
kind of snow-flakes are falling this morning.” 

“ Kind ? I don’t know what you mean by 
kind. A white wad like all snow-flakes, I 
suppose,” replied Grace, forgetting to scowl, 
she was so astonished at such a question. 

“ It is snowing like crumbs,” remarked 
Johnny Hunter. 


304 


Agnes and Her NeigTibors, 


“ Why, Miss Agnes ! ’’ cried Grace in a minute, 
after looking blankly into the storm. “ Here is 
a star ! And here is another ! Why they ''are 
all stars ! Did you know it ? I never heard of 
such a thing ! All stars ! Beautiful, beautiful, 
perfect stars falling from the sky I And, Miss 
Agnes, each point of the star is just like a fern, 
broad with little leaves on it. I never saw any- 
thing so lovely in my life.” 

“ Probably you never looked at a snow-flake 
before in your life, then, my dear,” replied 
Agnes. 

The children all crowded eagerly to the 
window, pressing their chubby cheeks close 
to the pane, and gazing out at the fast-dropping 
stars, that hung a moment on the branches of 
the fir-tree, and then fell off upon the whitened 
ground or melted away forever. 

“ Why, Miss Agnes,” said Grace, “ snow 
flakes are not all like these, are they? These 
are perfect beauties.” 

“ No,” answered Agnes. “ Sometimes, when 


Both Sides of the Water, 305 

the wind blows they get shaken out of shape. 
But if they are left to themselves, they fall in 
some sort of a regular form. There have been 
ninety-six kinds of snow-flakes counted, but 
those in the same storm are always alike. 
These ninety-six kinds are divided into three 
classes ; but these classes have such very hard 
names, I don’t know as you can remember 
them.” 

“ Ho ! I can,” replied Johnny Hunter. “ I 
can spell rhinoceros, and words like that.” 

“ You' can’t spell baker, though, for I tried 
you,” said Freddy Irving. 

Johnny looked a little crestfallen. 

“I know it,” said he. “I haven’t learned 
those kinds of words, but I’m a go’n ter.” 

‘ Go’n ter ’ was the excuse and apology that 
Johnny Hunter always hid behind. 

“ Let’s see if you can learn these words then ” 
said Agnes, bringing forward a volume of the 
Encj'clopedia from her bedroom. She came and 
sat with it by the window, where she could 
20 


306 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

watch the snow, with the wondering children 
clustering about her. “ Lamellar,” said she, 
opening the book, “ that is, formed in thin plates, 
flat, you know ; spicular, that is, having sharp 
points as you see in these stars. And pyramidal, 
that is, coming up to a point at the top, with a 
flat bottom. These three kinds are divided 
into ninety-six different forms as I told you. 
So you understand how I mean ? The spicular 
snow-flakes are all star-shaped to begin with, 
then. But one variety has stars with single 
points. Another has something like little 
feathers branching off from the points. Some 
have ferny points, and some with ferns upon the 
ferns.” 

So Agnes talked till the children took some 
idea of these varieties of forms, and had learned 
not only the names, but how to spell them. 
Then she explained, as well as she could, how 
snow becomes sleet, and what turns rain to hail. 
She told them stories of avalanches, and glaciers, 
of the dogs of St. Bernard, and of the strange 


Both Sides of the Water. 307 

phenomenon of red snow. The little ones were 
enthusiastic with curiosit}^ and delight. 

“ Did you ever see it snow anything but 
stars ? ” they asked. 

“ Sometimes,” Agnes said. “ But there are 
more star snow-storms than of other kinds. 
When you can, I want you to look at the snow- 
flakes through a microscope. They are much 
more elegant then ; just as God’s works always 
are, the better we can see them.” 

“ There won’t be another snow this year ! ” 
exclaimed Grace Starkweather. “ Now you see 
if there is ! And I can’t wait till next winter.” 

“ Oh ! is this the same little girl that I heard 
fretting, not an hour ago, because she was so tiled 
of the snow ? ” asked Agnes. 

Grace twisted on her chair and dropped her 
head. 

“ Well,” said she, “ I didn’t know then that 
there was anything nice about snow.” 

“ You might have known it, my little Grace,” 
replied Agnes. “ You will always find God’s 


308 


Agnes and Her Neighbors, 


works worth looking at, for ‘ He hath made 
everything beautiful in his time.’ And this is 
what we will have for our text to-day.” 

As the childish voices joined in sweet chorus, 
“He hath made everything beautiful in his 
time,” the sun broke out, and shining through 
the fast-falling flakes made them glitter with a 
pure and dazzling light, like living pearls and 
diamonds. Thus, with this last and crowning 
glory, winter departed and left in his place the 
emerald spring. 




CHAPTER VIL 

“ God has a strong pavilion, where 
He makes my soul abide.” 

ITTLE Grace Starkweather was right. 
That was the last snow-fall of the season, 
and even while it was coming down the 
grass kept on growing and the leaf-buds 
unfolding. 

So, when the last week in May- came, it found 
the broad earth everywhere smiling back to the 
smiling heavens. 

Agnes stood in her doorway, one day, looking 
after the last of her little flock as they pattered 
on their homeward way. Her heart was full of 
sweet content, as she thought of all the blessings 

( 309 ) 



310 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

in her peaceful lot and thanked God for every- 
thing. Her father, though faulty and halting 
still, had never gone back from the consecration 
he had made of himself to the Saviour. 

“ He’s no saint upon earth, Mr. Avery ain’t, 
and he never will be, not in this world. But 
he’s a changed man and it’s all Agnes’s doings, — 
and the spirits,” said Mrs. Wilkinson. 

On the first Sabbath of May he had publicly 
avouched the Lord Jehovah to be his God, re- 
nouncing the dominion of the world over him 
and consecrating his whole soul and body to the 
service of God, and every day he showed this 
consecration to be sincere, by more gentleness 
and patience and self-forgetting. 

When Agnes thought of this great blessing 
that had flowed into her life, her heart sang for 
joy while she looked about at the fragrant or- 
chards and wayside bloom, and repeated aloud the 
musical words of the song of songs, — 

“ So, the winter is past. 

The rain is over and gone ; 


Both Sides of the Water, 


311 


The flowers appear on the earth ; 

The time of the singing of birds is come, 

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ; 
The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, 

And the vines with the tender grape give a good 
smell.” 

It seemed to her that her soul was so lifted 
above the glooms and fogs of mortality, that she 
should never feel herself out of the sunshine 
again. But “ we are born in a vale and must 
take the consequences of being found in such a 
situation.” Even then, discomfort, of the earth, 
earthy, was putting on its shoes to come and 
find her. 

And this brings me to Miss Submit Green, the 
homeliest woman in Glencoe, who was as queer as 
she was homely. 

She took care of the village church, and lived 
in a httle high house in one corner of the church- 
yard, just where four ways met. There was a 
wide-topped chimney standing like a sentinel on 
one side of the roof, with a “ lean to ” at that end 
of the house, where she kept her cooking-stove, 


312 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

her jugs and kettles, her strings of dried pump- 
kin and peppers, and her kindling-wood. 

She was supported in great part by the chari- 
ties of the church and of her neighbors; but 
some friendly guise must be wrapped about each 
gift like apple-sauce about a pill, for she would 
have resented a bare-faced charity as an unpar- 
donable impertinence ; and to hear her talk, you 
would have taken her for one of the landed' 
gentry. 

To make sure of it, she had her monument 
already set in the grave-yard behind the church 
with her name upon it, and this verse composed 
by herself : — 

“ Oh, what is man but feeble dust 
Exposed to moth and rust ? 

He bids adieu to earthly things. 

And slumbers in the dust.” 

And in the third drawer of her best pine 
bureau was a white robe, that was done, up 
afresh every June and sprinkled over with thyme 
and lavender. 


Both Sides of the Water, 313 

Upon this same morning, Miss Green was look- 
ing for hen’s eggs among the tall grass in the 
grave-yard. She had a Leghorn hat on her head, 
banded about with a strip of red calico, with a 
broad brim that flapped at every step ; and she 
wore a gown made of bright green chintz 
flowered over with great red poppies and yellow 
tulips. 

“ The old black hen has hid away her nest 
somQwheres,” said she, talking to herself, for she 
was a very social person, as she groped with an 
old umbrella staff in the plot of clover behind 
her own monument. “ And if I can’t find it no 
how else, I must tie a ball of twine to her leg, 
and follow her up by that.” 

Meanwhile the black hen was composedly 
laying her morning egg in Mr. Irving’s woodpile 
across the brook and up the hill, and Willy 
Allen’s duck was snapping off Miss Green’s peas 
as though they had been planted, and shone and 
rained upon for this end. 

Presently the roll of carriage-wheels caused 


314 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

her to look up, and peering out from behind the 
bulwark of her own tombstone, she saw Doctor 
Summerbell going by in his low phaeton. 

“ Ah, that indeed ! ’’ said she. “ The doctor 
from over to Wallingford, throwing up four sods 
with his stable-kept team. Why don’t he ride in 
a gig like old Doctor Martindale ? Lool^ just as 
though he was watching for a chance to take 
somebody in. Well, but where is he going ? 
Nobody’s took sick, not as I’ve heard on, and the 
small-pox ain’t round, that he should be out on a 
vacillating tower.” 

Miss Green’s resource of hard words was 
rather greater than the dictionary’s, and she 
pelted her acquaintances with them, with as 
little mercy as the old man showed the rude boy 
on his apple-tree. There was nobody to hear 
her now, excepting an amber caterpillar or two, 
and a hurrying black ant with a grain of some- 
thing in her mouth twice as big as she. But 
Miss Green, even in the privacy of her own solil- 
oquies, never let her conversation off its stilts. 


Both Sides of the Water, 


315 


“Well,” she continued, shading her eyes with 
her hand, and looking after the light cloud of 
dust that half-enveloped the shining equipage, 
“ I’ll be buttered if he hasn’t turned up the river- 
road, and made straight toward Mr. Avery’s. 
It isn’t the first time, nor the second time, nor 
yet the third time since the month came in. 
Somebody’d ought to talk to Avery’s girl, and I 
can do it as slick as anybody, I suppose. I’ve a 
notion I’ll dress me all in my best and happen in 
to take a cup of tea with her this identical after- 
noon.” 

Accordingly she appeared in Mr. Avery’s 
doorway, exactly as the clock struck two. She 
had on her Sunday pucker, and her Sunday 
gown, which was made, the gown I mean, of 
blue paper-cambric, the glazed side out. 

. “ You wasn’t looking for me to-day, was you,” 
said she, sweeping a stately courtesy that she 
learned at ‘ lady school ’ fifty years before. 
“ I’ve come to have a good old-fashioned visit 
with you, and brought my knitting along in my 
ridicule.” . 


316 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

“ That is right, Miss Green,” said Agnes, cor- 
dially. “ You haven’t been to see me for a long 
while. I was thinking about you this very 
morning, and wondering if your hyacinths are 
out 3 ^et.” 

“ Oh yes, dear, they are coming out finely, 
and their fragrance is ineffable. You must 
come and see them. I have my reasons for not 
coming here oftener,” replied Miss Green, gath- 
ering up her mouth till it was no bigger than a 
bead. “ I have my reasons. It is nothing 
against you, Agnes, but you know I am a single 
woman, and such, can’t be too careful where 
there is a marr^dng man in the case.” 

Agnes had turned to carry Miss Green’s bon- 
net away, and lost the significant look with 
which she said this ; and when she turned back 
the visitor having shook up the cushion, had 
seated herself in the rocking-chair, and opened 
her “ ridicule.” 

“ You must feel the loss of Mrs. Hathaway,” 
said she as Agnes sat down beside her with a 


Both Sides of the Water. 


317 


stocking to mend. “ She wasn’t a woman of 
great parts, Mrs. Hathaway wasn’t, hut it’s a 
dreadful poor stake that ain’t missed out of the 
i fence.” 

So she moaned on, Agnes saying “ Ah, yes, and 
Ho,” just often enough to keep the ball of conver- 
sation rolling. 

“ You haven’t such a thing' as a piece of cus- 
tard-pie in the house, have you ? ” said Miss 
Green, in the course of the first half-hour. I’m 
proper fond of custard-pie, but I haven’t made 
one, I can’t tell you the time when. Eggs are 
so high and so scarce that I have felt I must 
save up all I could so’s to sell them while they 
are fetching their price. You’ve always had the 
I name of making good pies, Agnes, and I don’t 
' know of any one that can make them to taste so 
correspondent to my own as yours do.” 

“ Well there ! I am glad you spoke of it. Miss 
Green,” said Agnes heartily. She had been 
waiting to hear what particular dish her visitor 
had in mind. “There is nothing father likes 


818 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

better and we haven’t had one, as you say, for a 
long while. I know you’ll excuse me, and I’ll go 

about making one now.” 

# 

“ Certainly ! Certainly ! Don’t let me be any 
put out to your work. I know what it is to be a 
family woman. Though, to be sure, I always con- 
trive it not to have my gre’t work ’round after 
dinner. But I’ll take my chair close up to the 
buttery door so we can keep on with our visit 
just the same, while you are getting your ingre- 
dientces together,” which accordingly she did. 
And, while Agnes buttered her pie-plate, and 
mixed the crust. Miss Green knit contentedly on 
a blue stocking-foot and talked. 

“ It is my custom to knit up a mess of feet ; 
Tops always outwears feet, didn’t you ever think 
of that ? So I have an extra pair to sew right 
on when the feet give out,” said she with a ca- 
pable nod “ I have done for myself long enough 
to learn how to manage with prudence, and that 
consequently makes me notice waste in others. 
For example, Agnes, I see you break your eggs 


Both Sides of the Water, 


819 


into your pan and then give your shells a fling. 
Now you should always stop and dreen' your 
egg-shells — my mother instructed me into that 
— and you can save in this way as good as one 
whole egg in a dozen.” 

^ “ Well, now I never thought of that,” replied 

Agnes, pinching the edge of her custard-pie with 
her thumb and finger. 

“ So they all say, I’ve let a good many people 
know it first and last,” returned Miss Green, com- 
placently. “I’ve told other things, too. My 
house being, as it were, a city set on a hill, I’m in 
I a situation to know what’s going on from Dan to 
Bersheby ! and ’ tisn’t my way to hide my light 
under a bushel.” 

So Miss Green moved round and round in gen- 
tle circles of talk, like a hawk watching its time 
to swoop down upon the unconscious chicken. 
While her unthinking victim listened, though 
hardly hearing, her ears were so full of the me- 
lodious rhythm of a poem Doctor Summerbell had 
read that morning to her and the children. 


320 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

She was startled back to full consciousness by 
Miss Green’s coining to a sudden standstill and 
then breaking out in a new place. 

“ You are doctoring with the Wallingford doc- 
tor yet, it seems. I doctored with him two days, 
but he didn’t seem to understand my complaints. 
He said morpheon wasn’t good to keep off the 
groitre, and other remarks, that I can tell him are 
equally facetious. But, however, it isn’t his skill 
I’m condemning; He may be as wise as King 
Solomon for all me ; that don’t change the ap- 
pearance of the thing any.” 

Agnes looked up in mild surprise. 

“ What thing ? ” said she innocently. 

Miss Green shook her homely head with an 
air of heavy responsibility. 

“ Somebody’d ought to tell you, and it may as 
well be me,” said she. “ Didn’t you never think 
he was calling here full often, seeing you are a 
single woman and he is a marrying man ? If I 
was you I’d ask his intentions next time he 
comes. ‘ Twon’t do any hui’t and it may set him 


Both Sides of the Water, 


321 


a-tliinking. I’ve had a mint of experience with 
the men, and I declare, you can’t depend on them 
one minute.” 

Miss Green sighed profoundly as she spoke, 
and looked sharply at Agnes with her uneven 
gray eyes as though she was a box with a glass 
lid. Miss Green was really well-meaning 
enough, but if there were two ways of doing 
a thing, an agreeable and a disagreeable one, she 
always chose the disagreeable way. To be sure, 
she was an absurd old creature whom nobody 
minded, but Agnes had a habit, whenever 
any one criticised her, though in ever so unjust 
a manner, of stopping at once to consider how 
much of it might be true. 

“ I wonder,” she said to herself now, “if I 
am getting to depend too much on the Doctor’s 
society. 

“It was, she knew, very pleasant to her, 
filling a spot that had been empty in her life 
since her brother Palmer was lost from it. 
Dr. Summerbell gave her the same outlook into 
21 


322 AgneB and Her Neighbors. 

the world of literature and science. He had 
kept an acquaintance with many of the early 
university friends that Palmer used to talk about, 
and it seemed to her almost like having the good 
old days back again, when the present was full 
of interest and the future of promise. He had 
brought her the latest books and magazines, and 
criticised them with her, and had proved a 
physician for her mind, as well as body. Life 
was so much richer, and more worth having 
since she had known him, and her attachment 
was so pure and harmless. 

She felt this rather then thought it on the 
instant, but she could not then stop to follow 
it out ; for there sat Miss Green, with her 
imperative eyes and easy-going tongue. 

“ Oh I ” said she, “ speaking of Doctor Sum- 
merbell, there is one thing I want to tell you. 
He recommends rather to bathe in hot water 
for rheumatism. Did you ever try it ? ” 

“ No, I never did,” returned Miss Green, “ and 
it wouldn’t do any good if I did. It isn’t the 


Both Sides of the Water, 323 

proper rheumatism that troubles me. It’s not 
only rheumatism ; it is rheumatic goutness. 
And there is nothing eases that like a rum 
sweat. The matron of the Indignant Sick 
Society expatriated it to me — Mrs. — Mrs. — 
what do you call her name ? Effingwell, yes, 
Effingwell, strange how names will slip away 
sometimes, when I know them as well as I do 
my own. Not that I have a treacherous mem- 
ory, — I can eat as well as I ever could. But, as 
I was going to say, I can’t get to take one so 
often as I’d be glad to, for I have nobody to rub 
me down after it, which is a very consequential 
part.” 

Miss Green, being thus set off in an easy 
flow of talk in the direction of herself. Doctor 
Summerbell dropped from her mind ; and with 
an active ingenuity on Agnes’s part she didn’t 
pick him up again, until the early supper was 
over and she was ready to go home. 

“ I want you to considerate what I said to 
you, Agnes, about receiving attentions from a 


324 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

marrying man. I’ve never married myself,” 
said she, as though discovering a fact. “ Not 
that anybody is in fault except myself, but I 
thought it all over and concluded Ifest not, 
though there has been those that said' I’d no 
heart — which is not the fact. However, I’ve 
considered the subject well, from east to west. 
I’ve had great opportunities to see family men 
in their families, and I’ll tell you what it is, 
Agnes, it sounds all so nice to talk about having 
somebody to take care of you, but I tell you if 
their wives want any sympathy, it comes in the 
form of an old pair of pants to mend. No man 
can realize a woman is feeble, unless she lies on 
her back groaning, and then they keep away 
from her, unless she has a handsome, young 
nurse. Being very high-spirited, and highly 
educated, I should resent those things myself. 
But, however, it wouldn’t be my wish to hender 
others from taking their chances, only I don’t 
like to see you fooled with.” 

“You are very thoughtful. lam obliged for 


Both Sides of the Water, 


325 


your interest,” said Agnes, hurrying off to the 
buttery, and coming back with a package nicely 
wrapped in a napkin. “ I had just enough crust 
for anotjiier pie, Miss Green. Perhaps you will 
take it with you, and I’ve put in some of my 
cinnamon-rolls for you to try. Father thinks 
there is nothing like them.” 

“ Certainly, certainly ! I’ll take them, if it 
will be any accommodation. Victuals do take 
hurt amazing soon, this weather, and if you’ve 
got an extra bake on your sweet-cake, I dessay 
shall relish it,” responded Miss Green, rustling 
away with her “ ridicule ” on her aim, and her 
mouth drawn up in the smallest kind of an O. 

Then Agnes sat down in her low rocking- 
chair, and looked out at “ the sunset’s carnival.” 

“ A man has a great deal to think about,” said 
she to herself. “A great many interests and 
objects in life. And a woman’s are narrow and 
few. So what may be absorbing to a woman, 
is to a man only one point. Therefore, my dear, 
in your friendships, be sure that one person 


326 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

and his belongings, don’t take more than his 
share of your attention. I could have given 
that advice to any girl long ago, and felt as wise 
as her grandmother. Let me take it to myself.” 

It is so much easier to say a thing than it is to 
act upon it, and Agnes felt even while she said 
this that nobody in Glencoe seemed of much im- 
portance. Nobody and nothing else helped to 
round out her life into such breadth and height. 
And then Dr. Summerbell constantly stimulated 
^and strengthened her best and highest powers, 
and she felt, after talking with him, as though 
she had been to a mental and moral gymnasium. 
There was nothing within her reach but what 
was, in comparison, belittling and narrowing. 

“ I will not come down, but I can go up,” said 
she. “ Up to the Infinite God who fashioned 
the heart, and He knows what is in it and what it 
needs. I will leave these things with Him.” 

Then, like a bird flying too high for snares and 
gunshots, she calmed herself in thoughts of the 
Eternal. She did not stop to look over and sort 


Both Sides of the Water, 327 

out her difficulties, but dropped the whole bur- 
den, and turning her back upon it, began to 
climb — 

“ The celestial ladder seen 
By Jacob in his dream,” 

up to the presence of the Lord. 

She took her little Bible, and sitting nearer the 
fading light of the window, opened it to the 
inspired poetry of the Revelation, and read — 

“ And I turned to see the voice that spake 
with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden 
candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven can- 
dlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed 
with a garment down to the foot, and girt about 
the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his 
hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ; 
and his eyes were as a flame of fire ; and his feet 
like unto fine brass, as they burned in a furnace ; 
and his voice as the sound of many waters. 
And he had in his right hand seven stars ; and 
out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword ; 
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in. 


328 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his 
feet as dead. And he laid ‘ his right hand upon 
me, saying unto me. Fear not; I am the first 
and the last ; I am he that liveth and was dead ; 
and, behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen ; 
and have the keys of hell and of death. Write 
the things which thou hast seen, and the things 
which are, and the things which shall be here- 
after ; the mystery of the seven golden candle- 
sticks. The seven stars are the angels of the 
seven churches ; and the seven candlesticks 
which thou sawest are the seven churches.’^ 

Paul in his wondrous vision, when he was 
caught up into paradise, heard unspeakable words, 
as he says. They could not be translated into 
our earthly language any more than words can 
be used that will make a child of two years old 
fully understand his father and mother, so near 
and yet so far from his infant capacity. 

John afterward tries to translate to us the 
glories of his later vision, making, as a whole, a 
beautiful fresco, but taken literally in their ma- 


Both Sides of the Water, 329 

terial sense describing figures impossible and 
grotesque. 

And yet, taken together, they point for us an 
image of glory and majesty that lifts us into a 
higher region, as we dwell longer and longer 
upon it. 

So now it was with Agnes, and when a little 
later her father came in, there was a light in her 
face as of one who has seen the Lord. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

“After dandelions, buttercups ; 

After buttercups, clover ; 

One blossom follows another one, 

Over and over and over.” 

T often happens in this world of discipline 
that something we have greatly desired 
is withheld from us till we are willing to 
do without it. And then it is given, 
perhaps, when we really don’t any longer care 
for it. We cannot see any reason. We know 
not why, but we shall know hereafter, for lo ! 
these are parts of His ways. 

During some days, Agnes felt so overshadowed 
by the presence of the Almighty that there was 
( 330 ) 



Both Sides of the Water. 331 

no occasion for her to cast out other thoughts ; 
“ the place was filled.” 

But long enough had she been smitten on 
“ pain’s anvil.” The work was wrought, and the 
end had come. Hereafter we shall see her only 
in the ways of pleasantness as well as the paths 
of peace. 

June had scarcely begun to open the twin- 
flowers and paint the strawberries, when Dr. 
Summerbell’s phaeton stopped -before the door. 

Agnes was at work at a flower-bed that her 
father had made under the windows. This 
flower-plot was a vegetable album to which all 
her neighbors had contributed. There were 
tulips from Mrs. Cotterill, and bloodroot that 
Mrs. Wilkinson went to the woods on purpose to 
dig. “ The blows are considerable pretty,” she 
said, “ and the root is ho end good for a cut.” 

Alice Irving had brought mignonette and 
Burgundy roses, Kate Allen clove pinks and 
lemon geranium, there were verbenas from the 
Hunter garden and cornflowers and French 


332 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

marigolds from Miss Green ; and a root of 
chamomile and a peony from Mrs. Starkweather. 

At the north corner of the house was a clump 
of balm that Mrs. Hathaway had set out and 
cherished. 

“ It is wonderful good for a nettle-sting and 
just as pretty as any of your posies. I wonder 
why it is you don’t all of you grow it,” she used 
to say. 

Agnes had noticed the bees and the humming- ' 
birds were as fond of it as Mrs. Hathaway, and 
this morning she was transplanting it to the side 
'of the bed nearest the windows. She was bend- 
ing to smooth the earth over its roots, and singing 
softly a verse that was dear to her, because it 
had been dear to her mother ; and one of the 
earliest and strongest memories connected with 
her mother was of seeing her look abroad when 
summer was coming over the land, and hearing 
her repeat this hymn — 

“ The winter is over and gone. 

The thrush whistles sweet on the spray. 


Both Sides of the Water, 333 

The turtle breathes forth her soft moan, 

The lark mounts and warbles away.” 

Slie was so engrossed in her work and song, 
with her back toward the road, that she did not 
know anybody was near till the Doctor spoke 
her name. 

“ I have come to take you to ride this morning,” 
said he. 

“ Thank you ever so much. You are kina as 
you can be ” returned Agnes. “But I don’t 
think I will go.” 

“ Think or not think isn’t the question ”• re- 
plied the Doctor, who was a man, and had a 
pronounced will. “Your physician orders a 
drive for your health, and you have put yourself 
under his medical treatment. So get your 
shawl, and shut your door, and let us be off. 
Rollo is in a hurry.” 

Rollo was a silken-haired chestnut horse, 
with soft eyes |hat he turned upon Agnes as 
though he loved her. Or, perhaps, as he was 
nothing but a horse, he was thinking of the 


334 Agnes and her Neighbors, 

lumps of sugar she sometimes fed him from her 
hand. 

She came up to him now and stroked his shin- 
ing shoulder. 

“ Alice Irving’s cousin from Boston came last 
night, Miss Evelyn Everett,” said she, “ Wouldn’t 
you like to ask her, too ? ” 

“ No, I would not,” replied the Doctor, decid- 
edly, “ I want you and you alone this time. I 
shall be pleased to take her, too, at some other. 
Aren’t you ready ? ” 

Doctor Summerbell was a man of subtle and 
strong magnetism who swayed everybody as the 
sun does the sunflower. And before Agnes hard- 
ly knew it, she was sitting beside him in the 
phaeton. 

It was one of the perfect days, when — 

“ Heaven tries the earth if it be in June, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays.” 

The clover bloom stretched out pink and fra- 
grant as a vast rose bed, and buttercups spotted 


Both Sides of the Water. 


335 


over tlie greensward as though they had been 
dropped upon it by the basketful. 

The light-footed horse bore along the carriage, 
with an easy grace like the rhythm of a poem. 
Under the sky so deep and blue, and on the 
earth so wide and fair, there seemed no room for 
aught but boundless gladness. To Agnes, with her 
renewed, fresh-springing health, the air, the sky, 
the June perfume, the gentle swaying motion, and 
the kind presence of her friend, all soothed and 
quieted her, and she sat wrapped in silent de- 
light. Whether she was lying on a bank of vio- 
lets, whether she was a flower or a soaring bird, 
or if she was out of the body altogether, she 
could not tell. 

For miles neither spoke, but at last they were 
recalled from this trance of delight by coming to 
a place where several men were at work upon 
the highway. Farmers of that part of the town, 
“ working out their road-tax.” 

They drew their plough and oxen to one side, 
and waited for the doctor’s phaeton to make its 
way slowly around the broken-up road. 


336 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

“We are getting quite a spell of we?ttlier,” 
said one of tlie men who had a shovel in his hand, 
“but we shall hev to hev our pay for it.” 

This every day homely remark brought Agnes 
suddenly upon the earth again. 

“ Some people seem to have a weather-con- 
science,” said she, smiling. 

The doctor smiled back, and then a serious 
and tender look stole over his face and mingled 
with the smile, beautifying it. 

“ I find ” said he, “ I must take a short trip to 
England this summer. I can be away only about 
two months, and I must start early in July. I 
am sorry to give you so little time, but I cannot 
think of going alone.” 

Doctor Summerbell had eyes that you would 
know were like his mother’s, and a mobile mouth 
that was sensitive while it was firm. And what 
his words had not said, his eyes and silent mouth 
were well able to express. 

Dear heart ! sweet heart ! Long-suffering, 
patient, loving Agnes Avery. You know now 


Both Sides of the Water, 837 

the beautiful secret with which the earth, the 
air, and the sky have been overflowing, as to you 
all in good time comes the crowned moment. 

There was not too much time for all that was 
to be done, but the loving, busy fingers of her 
neighbors helped to make her ready. And on 
the last day of June, she was married in the 
village church which had been made for love of 
her into a bower of roses. Agnes herself looked 
lovelier than the roses, as she stood by Doctor 
Summerbell, dressed in white muslin trimmed 
with Star-of-Bethlehem, sweet in itself, and 
sweeter in its language,. — “ Let us follow 
Jesus.’’ 

It had been arranged that Mr. Avery should 
go, while the Doctor and Agnes were away, for a 
visit to his only sister who lived at “ the 
Michigan,” as he called it. So, without feeling 
she was leaving any duty behind, Agnes set 
forth for her first long holiday. 

\ 

“ They went off just as happy as ever youj-see 
folks in your life. And it was me that gave the 


338 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

hint of what to do to Agnes. I can’t be too 
instant in season and out of season,” said Miss 
Green, nodding complacently over her slice of 
wedding-cake. 




CHAPTER IX. 

“Every sail is full set, and the sky 
And the sea blaze with light.” 

ULY had come, and July had gone, and 
now it was the last day of the summer. 

At Mrs. Hunter’s there had been a 
stirring, and sweeping, and dusting all 
the morning, getting ready for “ the Dorcas,” 
that was to meet there in the afternoon. And 
after dinner, bright and early, first of all ap- 
peared Miss Green with her needle-book in her 
pocket, and her thimble on her finger. Next 

( 339 ) 



340 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

came Mrs. Starkweather, looking as though she 
grudged the time she had used up on the way. 

“ It is best to eat your dinner early, and bring 
your thread with you, ain’t it ? ” said she, with a 
little puckered-up smile. “1 thought I should 
have to make a start home in pretty good season 
to see about my chores.” 

So, one by one, the neighbors gathered in, till 
parlor, and the front-hall, and the piazza were 
full, with some spilling over upon the lawn 
under the pear-trees. 

By-and-by Willy Allen was seen coming up 
the road with something in his hand that he 
threw up and caught again. 

Kate ran out to the gate as she saw him. 

“ What you got, Willy ? Any letter for me ? ” 
said she, eagerly. 

Willy shook his head and walked slower. 

“ Truly, Will ? Haven’t you anything? ” en- 
treated Kate. 

“ Paper ! ” returned Willy, tossing it up in the 
air again, and failing to catch it this time. Kate 
snatched it from the road where it fell. 


Both Sides of the Water, 341 

“ Oh, an English paper from Agnes ! ” said 
she, joyfully. 

“ You’d get something better than that if your 
name was Alice Irving,” retorted Willy, waving 
a letter above his head. 

That was from Agnes, too, and directly an 
eager group gathered about Alice as she sat 
upon the upper step of the piazza, and opening it 
at once began to read. 

“ Malvern Koad, London, England, Aug. 10th. 1871. 
Dear Friends at Home. 

I think and think of you, and hope to see you 
all in a few weeks more. In the mean time, I 
have been just as happy as is possible for a 
human being to be, and haven’t seen a blade of 
grass or a scarlet poppy that I would be willing 
to have missed. To be sure, ten days of sea-sick- 
ness at the beginning of a pleasure trip is rather 
monotonous, and I wondered sometimes if my 
strength would outlast the voyage. One of the 
Doctor’s friends who came to see us off, said to 


342 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

me, “ You will be ill on tbe Irish Sea if nowhere 
else.” So all the way I shut my eyes and 
dreaded the Irish Sea. I thought I might possi- 
bly endure the voyage to Queenstown, but that 
turbulent Irish Sea at the end I felt sure would 
be what Mrs. Hathaway used to call “ the last 
hair on the camel’s back.” 

But the throb of the pulse never stopped, 

‘ In the heart of the ship ; ’ 

the sun shone, and favoring winds blew us stead- 
ily on toward our desired haven, so at the end of 
the tenth day we saw a gray bunch of cloud on 
the far horizon, and this was Ireland. We 
steered nearer and nearer till Fastnet lighthouse 
came in sight, then Clear Island rounding off 
like a crouching rabbit into Cape Clear. Then 
for miles the long reach of low, gray coast with 
white breasted seagulls waving and crying over- 
head, and sailing ships on every side. Then 
more lights, more gulls, more sails, and once a 
ruined castle standing high on a headland with 
broken tower and arches. 


Both Sides of the Water, 343 

At midnight we steamed into the harbor of 
Queenstown, and waited -for the little black 
tender to come out and take off passengers and 
luggage and seventy-one mail sacks. There was 
shouting of the officers, the answer of the sailors, 
the creaking of the boats, the tossing about of 
trunks and boxes, and of the odd bags and bun- 
dles from the steerage ; there was the wailing of 
tired babies, and the hushing of anxious mothers ; 
there was the one box left on, that should have 
gone off, and the one man gone off that should 
have staid on. And then with a shout and good- 
bye cry, we fell apart and went our way. 

The next day was Sunday, and it dawned upon 
us in that dreaded Irish channel. There was not 
a cloud in the sky above, and not a cap on the 
smooth, green water. We glided on like a fairy 
boat on a fairy sea, and I crept out of my berth, 
feeling rather weak, it is true, but well as I ever 
did in my life ! The sun shone, and the^reen 
waves dimpled about our boat like a baby smiling 
in its sleep. 


844 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

After morning service below, we sat on deck 
in tlie sunlight all the live-long summer 'day, 
gliding close by the shores of Wales, with its 
purple cliffs, green fields, hedge-rows, quaint 
stone cottages, and old brown churches ; its wind- 
mills, and highways, and villages. 

First we saw Hollyhead, and great Ormes Head 
where many boats have gone down in the storm 
and darkness. Between that and little Ormes 
Head is a watering-place, ‘ Beautiful Slandudus,’ 
as the captain called it, with hotels and bathing- 
beach, and encircling hills. He said he was once 
riding around the base of little Ormes Head with 
his wife when they saw a man climbing up the 
face of the cliff in a most difficult and perilous 
way, as it seemed. When they came back, he 
had come down and was standing by the road- 
side. The captain said, ‘ Why in the world did 
you go up the mountain . that way instead of by 
the road ? ’ The fellow looked very silly, and 
pointing backward with his thumb, said, ‘ Gal 
up there. Didn’t want the old folks to see me.’ 


Both Sides of the Water, 


345 


I looked at the rough shoulder of the mill that 
hid the house, where the girl lived, and hoped 
she and her lover were happily married and hav- 
ing a good. time.” 

“ Of course she did,” interposed Kate Allen, 
who was sitting beside Alice and looking over 
her shoulder. “Agnes would sympathize with 
the love affair of a pine shingle.” 

“ So we floated on up into the river Mersey,” 
continued Alice, “ and came to our harbor and 
the tender that had been sent to meet us, in the 
long twilight, and ended thus the most delight- 
ful day of my life. I enjoyed it so much more be- 
cause I had sprung up of a sudden into health, 
and fancied I knew how the sick folks felt that 
were healed by Jesus at a touch. And then, 
girls, I preached a little sermon to myself. 
‘ There you have been,’ said I, ‘ all the way over 
dreading what has been so charming when you 
came to it. Will you remember after this to 
take no anxious thought for the morrow ? ’ And 
I promised I would. 


346 . Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Since that day, every day has been full of fresh 
delight. 

One we spent in the British museum looking 
at the twenty-five miles of book-shelves, and the 
statues, and vases, and everything else you can 
think of. There was Cleopatra’s coffin, for one 
thing, and I heard a girl who was looking at the 
mummies ask, ‘ Are they real people, or are they 
imitations ? ’ 

We saw Julius Caesar’s bust, thin and small- 
featured, and not like a soldier, Augustus, pleas- 
ant and comely, and Nero with a black vase. 

The same day we went to Westminster Abbey, 
and I was so shocking as to walk right upon 
Dickens’s grave without seeing it, but I saw 
another woman look across it to her husband 
with tears in her eyes. 

Last week we spent some days with a friend 
of the Doctor’s, a few miles out of London, in a 
delightful spot. Here Dr. Watts lived the last 
thirty and more years of his life, and here he died. 
I know Mrs. Starkweather will respect me more 


Both Sides of the Water, 347 

when she knows I sat in the arbor where he used 
to sit a great deal. It is covered with ivy, and 
hawthorne, and privet, and shaped like the pic- 
tures of the Hottentot’s huts in our old geography. 
It is called ‘ Dr. Watts’s wig ’ and is on the grounds 
of the college founded by Lady Huntington, be- 
side Hew River, that supplies London in part 
with water. This “ New ” river is a canal some- 
thing like two hundred years old. That reminds 
me of the old verger at W estminster Abbey who 
showed us the tomb of Edward I. “ the hammer 
of the Scottish nation,” who directed that his 
bones should be carried before the English army 
till Scotland was subdued. There was a dis- 
pute whether the body of the king was really in 
the tomb, he told us, and recently the antiqua- 
rian society, opened it and found the embalmed 
remains. It was about a hundred years ago, he 
said. That ‘ recent ’ event made us Americans 
feel very young. 

But I’ve come back to London too soon, I 
was going to take you along “ Dr. Watts’s walk,” 


348 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

where it is said he used to go up and down com- 
posing hymns. As I looked at the ‘ living green ’ 
of the landscape beyond the hedge, at the love- 
ly hills of Essex, and all the fair, blossoming 
country, I could well enter into his feelings when 
he wrote, — 

‘ The hill of Zion yields 
A thousand sacred sweets 
Before we reach the heavenly fields 
Or walk the golden streets.’ 

This lane leads to the site of the palace where 
lived the ‘ Lord of Burleigh fair and free,’ and 
where he entertained Queen Elizabeth and her 
court twelve times. The palace was destroyed 
by Cromwell’s soldiers, but the same velvet lawn 
is there enclosed by the same garden walls, with 
the sward outside and the promenade just within 
that I could fancy adorned once more with the 
Queen and her courtly train. Two or three 
houses have been built partly of the palace ruins. 
I went up the grand stairs of the old' palace, 
made wide, they say, for King James to reel 


Both Sides of the Water. 349 

down. He afterward owned this estate, and it 
was here Charles the First was born. I sat on a 
rocking-horse Charles had when a child, a little 
rudely-fashioned wooden horse with its nose 
broken. It is kept in Cardinal Wolsey’s bed 
chamber in the “ Great House,” which is not 
very far from the other end of Dr. Watts’s walk, 
and is the remains of a palace given to the Car- 
dinal by Henry the Eighth. The entrance hall 
below is in good repair, and I sat in Wolsey’s arm- 
chair there and looked at Sir. Peter Lely’s por- 
traits, and the chain armor worn by William the 
Conqueror. There are dungeons underneath 
this house where was a chapel for midnight mass, 
and a confessional. Two bodies were found here 
built in the wall. Oh, dear me ! It is said that 
Henry the Eighth stood on the roof to listen for 
the gun announcing the death of Anne Boleyn. 
But I don’t believe it, for it' is twelve miles from 
Tower Hill, and more. However, I thought there 
would be. no harm in looking up and imagining I 
could see him standing there. 


350 Agnes and Ser Neighbors, 

Last week we went to Windsor Castle. We 
left the London station on the Metropolitan 
railway that goes under the city, and very soon 
were in the country where poppies grew in the 
hedges and reddened the fields ; along by the 
river Thames through a lovely country in a warm, 
lovely day. We staid four hours at Windsor. 
First took a lunch, and then went to the palace. 
We went in the chapel, to the tombs of Leopold 
and the Princess Charlotte, together again after 
so long a parting ; and walked over the vault 
where Henry the Eighth and Jane Seymour and 
Charles the First and Queen Anne’s baby lie. After 
going through all the public apartments we went 
on the tower, from the top of which we might 
have seen twelve countries, the warden told us, 
only for a haze in the atmosphere. He asked in 
quite an imperative way, what caused that hap- 
pearance. The gentlemen said he knew best, and 
in return asked him. 

‘ It is the smoke of London,’ said he. ‘ When 
the wind is in the heast it is always driven down 
here.’ 


Both Sides of the Water, 351 

The warder was a sunburnt, sandy man, y^^ith 
cotton in his ears, and V. R. on his coat. He 
told us he had been on that tower for twelve 
years, and he knew which way the wind was. 
He showed us the spires of the church in Stoke 
Pogis, where Gray wrote the ‘ Elegy in a Church- 
yard.’ And the old mansion of William Penn. 
He kept constantly saying, ‘ Do you understand 
me? You don’t understand me.’ Then he 
always took a deep breath and began again. 

Before we came away we visited 'the stables 
where were thirty-nine horses in thirty-nine 
stalls, with the name of the horse painted over 
each stall. Every tail was cut off square and 
straight, and every skin was smooth and shining 
as the. skin of a cherry. 

The cream-colored horses that are used only 
when the Queen opens and prorogues Parlia- 
ment, are kept in London, I suppose, and possi- 
bly she has another horse or two at her other 
Palaces. But when she is at Windsor, the poor 
Queen has to get along the best she can with 


352 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

only tliirty-nine. And these are not all for her 
own private use, either; eight of them are for 
her attendants. 

Then in an end stall, there is Hestor the glos- 
sy black horse that belonged to Prince Albert? 
and that nobody has ridden since he died. 

And there are the pretty Shetland ponies that 
the Princess Louise drives four in hand, named 
Angus, Linda, Margaret, g^nd Carlo. So her un- 
fortunate majesty has only twenty-seven for her- 
self, and two of those. Stamp and Snap, were 
sick and off by themselves in hospitals. 

The horses have nice brick stalls ranged 
around the court-yard, littered with straw, neatly 
plaited at one end in a sort of knotted border 
that comes out behind their feet. 

In another part of the yard are the harness- 
rooms, with a stove in each room, and the beau- 
tiful gold and silver mounted harnesses hanging 
around the walls. Upon one side is the black- 
smiths shop, and on the other the carriage- 
houses. There is every kind of carriage you 


Both Sides of the Water. 


353 


can think of, in every shape, and all as elegant 
and beautiful as they can be. Phaetons and 
state ‘coaches, and chaises, and sleighs, and bas- 
ket-wagons with red wheels and linings, and 
cushions of blue silken damask, wrought every- 
where with the rose, the shamrock, and the 
thistle intertwined with the initials ‘ V. R.’ ’ I 
wonder if the Queen doesn’t get tired of seeing 
the same monogram on everything, everywhere* 
she looks. 

Queen Victoria’s carriage-horses for home- 
driving are named Baroness and Spinster, and 
her favorite saddle-horse is a dark bay named 
Flora. I did want to pluck a hair from her 
smooth, shining neck, but didn’t know but some- 
how that might undermine the British govern- 
ment. So I contented myself with picking up 
a straw from the stable, and I lost that. 

I know Johnny Hunter will be glad to hear 
the names of the rest of the Queen’s horses, so 
he can have something to select from for his 
next kittens. They are ‘ Forfeit, Helen, Roland, 
23 • ‘ 


354 Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

Pert, Faith, Malakoff, Prisan, Rupert, Tantalus, 
Outcast, Pierre, Paste, Foil, Alma, Progress, 
Torch, Faust, and Snyder. The horses of the 
attendants are named Philippi, Andrew, Watch- 
man, Waymark, Gleaner, Sphinx, Peabody, and 
Esher.’ 

Now I must say a word about our little run 
into Ireland. After our great continent, Eng- 
land seemed very circumscribed to us, of course ; 
and one night we got so near the edge we slipped 
off. Happily there was a boat hard by that 
caught us. The stewardess said at once, 

‘ You’ve crossed with me before, haven’t you ? ’ 
I felt flattered, I assure you, to look like such an 
old traveller when I’d spent my whole life with- 
in sound of the meeting-house bell. 

The cabin was a cunning little place with 
berths like doll’s beds, and I slept well till morn- 
ing and waked in the harbor of Belfast with a 
drizzling rain pouring down. But we thought 
we wouldn’t be cheated of seeing a bit of the 
town, so we opened our umbrellas and set forth 


Both Sides of the Water, 355 

on a jaunting car, in what the woman at the 
station called ‘ soft weather.’ 

It was past eight, but the shutters were up, 
and the few wayfarers all wore the national 
insignia of the rag rampart. Apparently our 
driver was not proud, of his native city, for after 
jolting past the town hall, the college, the deaf 
and dumb asylum, and some meeting-houses, 
he dumped us forty minutes too soon at the 
station. From there we took a slow train for 
Dublin, taking nine hours. By help of an in- 
vestment of three sixpences, we got a first-class 
coupe to ourselves, looking backward, with glass 
at the sides and end, so we had a good outlook. 

The people are mostly out at the elbows and 
very frowzy. The hedge-rows unkept and 
slovenly, and the whole landscape much like 
Bridget Flaherty’s housekeeping. Little cot- 
tages thatched with sods, and moss-grown, are 
tucked in hollows, with bare-footed, white- 
headed, ragged children at the doors, instead of 
the scarlet geraniums and fuchsias I see about 


'S3Q Agnes and Her Neighbors, 

all the English cottages. The fields are over- 
run with what I heard called ‘ dog-standard,’ 
which looks like johnswort from the railway 
carriage ; and the hillsides are covered with 
purple heather. There are many stone walls 
;and many ragged hedges. We always started 
backward when we left a station, in order to 
get a good starts or perhaps simply as an 
Irishism. We reached Dublin at six, and rode 
about in a jaunting-car for an hour. Dublin 
has handsome public buildings, but is full of 
ragged, dirty, beggarly-looking people. Nearly 
all the decently dressed ones I saw, were police- 
men. Our driver was a characteristic specimen, 
.and kept saying ‘ g’up ’ and ‘ g’oh ’ and brand- 
ishing his whip, the snapper generally coming 
.around upon my fingers, and at last in my eye. 
I asked four or five times, the name of Sackville 
•Street, but always got ‘ g’up ! ’ for an answer. 
He pointed out the statue of ‘ one of our great 
writers by the name of Moore ’ and also that of 
‘ William, the man that conquered Ireland.’ 


Both Sides of the Water, 357 

The Doctor composed a short poem while we 
were waiting beside the ill-smelling river, — 

‘ If you want a good sniffy 
Go to the river Liffey.’ 

Of course, our driver demanded more than the 
regular fare, and went off in a high rage at last, 
although he had seemed made of oil and 
molasses all the way before. 

One of the shopkeepers afterward remarked, 
that if we’d gone through some of the counties 
we’d have been dazzled, and wondered there 
could be any poverty in Ireland, but ‘ the people 
had rather put out their hands than to work.’ 

We came back to England on the next day, 
through North Wales, that looked exceedingly 
prosperous and thrifty from contrast. The peo- 
ple looked comfortable, and hard and industrious, 
quite in keeping with the slated roofs on the 
brown cottages and the stone walls about the 
neat, close-fed pastures where the small, black 
Welsh cattle grazed. On the way we stopped at 


358 Agnes and Her Neighbors. 

Chester, and walked around the old city on the 
Koman wall that was built while Paul was preach- 
ing to the Gentiles. On the top of one of the 
towers upon this wall Charles the First stood and 
saw his last force defeated before he fled to 
Scotland. There is a little museum in this tow- 
er, now, where an old man shows his curiosities, 
— himself being the greatest — for only three- 
pence. Among the prints on the wall was a 
blurred wood-cut, from some very poor newspa- 
per, of a man with no features and a great deal 
of figure. Underneath was printed, ‘ ‘Washing- 
ton,’ and the keeper of the tower told us it was ‘ a 
picture of the gentleman that found out Ameri- 
ca.’ 

I keep asking myself every day, ‘ Is this Agnes 
Avery ? ’ and the Doctor, when he hears me, re- 
plies, ‘ No, it is Agnes Summerbell. I tell him 
he is like the little woman’s dog that barked at 
her when she came home, uncertain whether — 


‘It be I, as I hope it be.’ 


Both Sides of the Water, 


359 


But, anyhow, I am here, and everywhere, and 
always shall be, 

Your loving Agnes.” 

“ She has given me quite an entertaining let- 
ter,” said Mrs. Starkweather, who had not been 
too much entertained to stop her work. “I 
hope she’ll have some London gowns to show us 
when she gets back. I should re’lly like to see 
what fashions they do have over there.” 

“ I kind o’ hoped she’d see the old queen,” re- 
joined Miss Green. “ By what I’ve heard folks 
say she don’t look any better than what I do. I 
wonder if you all know, by the way, that Dr. 
Summerbell has bought the Lancaster mansion 
up on the Hill over to Wallingford. It’s a noble 
estate with a cupolam on top, and a grave-yard 
joining right on to the home-lot.” 

“ Yes,” replied Mrs. Wilkinson, “ Dr. Summer- 
bell is just as rich as mud. Agnes has got a hus- 
band of the first water, but he would be none too 
good for her if he was the Pope of Rome.” 


360 Agnes and Ser Neighbors, 

“ The meek shall inherit the earthy said Kate 
Allen, looking triumphantly at Alice Irving. 

As for Agnes and Doctor Surnmerhell, they 
knew that in riches as well as in poverty, in 
health as well as in weakness, it is by the hand 
of love alone that — 

“ The miracle again is wrought, 

And water turned to wine.’' 





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